


One Tall Tale

by Aerine



Category: Borderlands, Tales from the Borderlands - Fandom
Genre: Explicit Language, F/F, F/M, Rhys/OFC is end game, im Rhys trash kinda sorta, there needs to be more oc works in this category!
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-12-19
Updated: 2017-06-21
Packaged: 2018-05-07 14:00:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 29,073
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5459015
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aerine/pseuds/Aerine
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which what was supposed to be the deal of a lifetime turns out to be a wreckage of love, loss, and identity crisis'. And jokes. We love jokes. Hilarity ensues.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Close Ties

**Author's Note:**

> I am so glad to introduce you to this story I've been writing! This also happens to be my very first I posted on this website. I hope everyone who reads and enjoys the fact that they're Rhys trash like me. Without further ado, this is my one way ticket to hell and I'm taking all of you with me :)

_I'm about to tell you a story. This story... well, I can't promise you a happy ending, but I can promise you something else – a good chance to soak up on your reading skills. I hope you know that I'm kidding because you'll realize soon enough that I'm a shitty writer. In time, you'll know my identity, you'll know my story, and you will definitely know how it ends. And don't fucking skip ahead; do you really want to ruin this for yourself? You might as well sit back and enjoy the ride 'cause once you read this shit, you'll be left sitting in your room, in bed, wondering what could have been._

This _story will involve a nice dosage of greed, love – ironic, since I hate people – and puns, so you might as well turn back now because I definitely would. Not to mention, betrayal is something you're going to have to get used to so... have fun, and go wild with your never ending theories on who crosses who. All I'm saying is, if you were to write a play like this with me as the lead role, it would certainly be a tragedy. References aside, this story can be light hearted at times, especially because of me since I'm funny as shit. In fact, this whole journey was a joke from the start._

_This joke of mine began right at the heart of Opportunity Square, on a bench that was so hot I found myself wrapping my arms around my knees, pulling them close to my chest. A low, but sound breeze was a godsend to this island, but I found it seeping into the sleeves of my army green jacket; I couldn't help but shiver, wondering why I ever considered the notion of coming to Opportunity in the first place. Then, I remembered my – I can't even believe I'm saying this – friend right next to me. This is where my story begins, and I am warning you now, this is not how it ends: calm, satisfied._

 The conversation at hand, one that involved my not settling down because I travel around Pandora for the sole purpose to not do that, wasn't even the object of my attention. The lint on my collar was probably worth more in regards to my attention span. I found it funny that I chose to waste it on the statue over my head of the infamous Handsome Jack, once president of Hyperion, and once the claimed dictator of Pandora. It was nice to know that every Hyperion civilian still idolized him, even when he did almost destroy Pandora... and killed a lot of people. But hey, he was attractive, you had to admit it.

I found it a bit ironic when I saw the statue for the first time, with a hand cradling a baby and the pride of Pandora on the other. Most would agree, Hyperions included, that Jack desired to rise to the top, so much that he was willing to kill in order to succeed. This would have been a lot more justifiable if so many hadn't decided to want to follow in his footsteps as if  _him awaking the Warrior never happened..._ You didn't hear that from me.

"And, so, I sniped 'em and buried them by—"

Deciding that what she had to say next was worth listening to, I cut in with a, "You back in business, Eris?"

"Nice try, dumbass, but no," she seemed to pay no mind to the baby bouncing in her lap, further chastising me. "I'm not. Just wanted to get you to listen to me for once."

It took me a minute. "What? I... I listen!"  _No I don't._

 "Okay, then what did I say?"  _Shit, she lost me._ "Yeah, that's what I thought, miss Zer0 wannabe."

Sounds like a great title to introduce myself – Noah, yours truly, Zer0 wannabe. Normally my cheeks would have grown hot, with my fists clenching in protest. My throat, strained with complete embarrassment, would have spent their willpower shushing her, and my finger would be to my lips. I would have told her, "Okay, just please kindly shut the hell up about it!" because Eris had me absolutely whipped and there was no arguing with her when she was around. Instead, I played it cool, grinning cheekily at the older woman because I knew that it was a fact everyone probably knew already.

... Okay, maybe that didn't happen. At least I have a reason for over exaggerating this tall tale, unlike some people, because writing about my old self is almost  _physically painful._ It's like seeing your old yearbook photo from your tween years and then recognizing your quote underneath is from, like, SpongeBob or something. The point is, expect a lot more of the "oh I can't admit that I'm a loser so I'll just hit you and deny it instead" me in the future.

Think of that but the opposite, and add five years onto my name; you would have Eris, a thirty two year old woman who is, without a doubt, everything I am but better. Eris, often addressed by her business name, Iris – one as beautiful as her, might I add – by other bounty hunters, had every trait I wanted to have. You could always count on her to take a deep breath, calm and collected as can be, and go on as if the situation hadn't taken a turn for the worse. Eris was swift in her work, and whenever I had the chance of watching her fight, my eyes couldn't help but light up. Not to mention, she had managed to snag a pretty good life for herself, married and all. I was never envious, however, since I couldn't imagine myself finding anyone that wasn't a total dick on Pandora... or anywhere, for that matter. You could also say that I was married to my work, which was sad no matter how you phrased it.

"Alright, just shut up about it!" With a sigh, I steered away from the subject to avoid total embarrassment. "Oh yeah, I'm heading off again. Y'know, there's word traveling around that—"

"For fucks sake, can you take note of the advice I'm trying to give you? For _once_?!"

"— hush, Eris, grown ups are talking," said the girl who fangirls over Zer0 every day of her life. "So, anyway, words travelin' around that the new CEO or whatever of Hyperion's making a deal with this guy for a Vault Key."

Eris couldn't help but close her eyes, a sharp intake of breath permeating her nostrils. She didn't seem to notice my sigh of resignation, rather focusing her attention at the newborn in her arms. Truth be told, I didn't expect any less of her. Ever since she quit the job, she'd been oddly bitter about it, despite her saying that she wanted to settle down and leave the life of bounty hunting. However, it didn't take a genius to figure out that she was angry for an entirely different reason.

"Noah, we've been over this," she whispered, her voice rendered unheard by the hundreds of people passing by.

Even so, I heard her soft voice, an underlying anger and frustration evident in her tone. It didn't stop me from biting my lip, the skin of my fingertips grappling into the holes of the gray and blue bench. As a result, the palms of my hands began to cry as they were stung and made vulnerable under the sunlight. It didn't take me long to jump up to my feet in hopes of ending the conversation, my hands in an awkward shuffle to search for the lint in my pockets.

"It was more like I mentioned it and you shot me down," I said, my finger reaching up to wrap itself around my dirty blonde hair, "if you really wanted to call that as 'having been over this.'"

"C'mon, Noah, let's not talk about this. Not now." She stood up, her newborn cackling at the frown on my face as he was hoisted up on top of her forearm. "I really,  _really_  don't need this right now."

Aside from the fact that I knew that baby did not like me from the very beginning, with him laughing at my misfortune definitive proof, it was tiring to hear her like this. Whenever she voiced her disproval, her disappointment, my will dwindled as a result of not wanting to let her down. I trusted her enough, enough that I never bothered to ask why it bothered her so much, with me going out to search for my relatives back at Promethea. Ever since we both left the planet together, I just assumed that she hated my relatives because the lot of them were out of sight for the majority of my life.

I could have argued that I was only barging in on the deal for the tons of cash that came with selling a Vault Key, but she and I knew that I intended to use it for an entirely other reason. Regardless of whether or not I was going to deliver it to the Hyperion who put the bounty up in the first place, I wanted to use the key for my own benefit; hearing that you may have connections to a Vault Hunter gives you ideas. Besides, there was no way I was leaving to Promethea with no cash and absolutely no way of getting there.

I couldn't help it. "Oh, and the world  _mourns_ for you. You have so many problems that it gives you an excuse to not give a shit about others!" My lips twisted into a grin, but my hand couldn't help itself, carelessly weaving into my hair in frustration. "Whatever. See you soon, Eris."

I didn't waste any time pivoting to my right, my hands back in the pockets of my green jacket in hopes that no one would see them trembling. It wasn't until I opened the doors to the entrance to Opportunity Square that I snuck a glance over my shoulder, my heart sinking at the sight of her, or rather lack of it. It comforted me a little to recall that Eris had never held a grudge for long; our friendship would be back to normal by the time I came back from my trip.

How wrong I was...

* * *

 

Despite the knowledge of Eris' inability to be and stay angry at me, it didn't stop my foot prodding at the wrinkled, crumpled up paper near my shadow. I watched on as it rolled down the hill, bouncing on the grass below it, and wondered who dared to litter on such a beautiful place like the Highlands. With these fields so close to the capital of Hyperion, you would think that the ' _please do not fucking litter'_  rule would long since be enforced already. Alas, no machine nor robots had the nerve to reveal themselves from the shadows and shoot me mercilessly in the face – seriously, why  _is_  it always the face – so I guess that Hyperion had been nice enough to leave the Highlands alone.

What may seem to others was my ambling along the fields, appreciating the clean air and the cool breeze brushing past my ears, was actually a desperate plead to drink my stress away. In my opinion, The Holy Spirits bar was one of the best on Pandora if you looked past the fact that it was situated in Overlook, which was on top of a hill. It could do a lot more if every male in that bar would just stop living, but I wasn't one to complain out loud. All I cared about at that moment was the alcohol that would eventually reach my lips.

My moment of happiness and longing ended rather abruptly upon meeting my destination on top of the hill, a pub already inhabited by loud and obnoxious Irish men, psychos, and rednecks. This is a result of the climax of the Clan War, a pointless but happened anyway battle between the Zaford and Hodunk clans because the latter apparently drowned some kids or something. Now that Mick, owner of The Holy Spirits, is dead, the Hodunks have no problems in letting themselves in, starting a bunch of fights that I have been blessed in being apart of.

Once I pushed my hands against the doors, I found myself stepping aside, eyes blinking at the Irish man meeting the ground. I expected him to say valiant words of defeat or explicit terms at the men inside, but no words could escape from his lips. My guess was that his lack of reply resulted from his overwhelming loss, but it could also mean that he could no longer talk, for he stopped breathing. He did not seem to react when I jabbed at him with a twig I found near my feet, skin sinking as I did it.

Before my brown, laced boots could collide with his leg, he coughed out his last words: "You... You shoulda seen the other guy!"

"Sure, buddy," I said, eyes wandering to the wound in his chest before stepping over his corpse. 

As the doors behind me shut out the town of Overlook, including the crisp air and blinding sunlight, I was thrust into a new environment that was all but foreign. My blue eyes blinked a few times to adjust, pupils widening at the lights dimming inside the pub. Scents mixing from bitter and pungent resulted in my nose crinkling in disgust. Grimacing at the smell, I kept on with my mission, sliding into the first chair I saw. Cheek resting on my right fist, I stared at my left hand tapping its nails on the counter. Not even a few moments later, my attention was directed towards a familiar yet repetitive cry nearby.

"Hey, Steve." His only reply to me was, and always will be: "Heyoo!" "I'll have the usual."

The thing about Steve becoming the owner was that, since Mick died, no one was there to replace him. After a while of him running the business everyone just went with it and allowed him to step in and take control. He, in my opinion, was more efficient than Mick when the guy was alive, considering that he was unable to speak in any other sentence besides that one word phrase. At least my orders ended up right _._

When my eyes caught sight of a glass sliding towards my hand, I left no sign of hesitation, raising it up to my lips so I can feel the burn slide down my throat. Regardless of whether or not I liked the taste – it tasted gross but I had long since gotten used to it – the shot of glass clinking when it met the countertop left me satisfied. As you can see, my satisfaction is rare, and only lasts for a moment because as soon as I flipped that glass over, I could tell that I was no longer drinking alone. You would think that he would take a hint, since I practically oozed a strong dislike for others from my very being.

Perhaps I would have not have judged his black, shaggy hair, or his leather vest, or his lips tugged in a preying smirk so quickly if he hadn't attempted to order a drink for me. A sigh sounded out my vexation, brown eyes in a narrow as my tongue picked at the filled cavity in my back tooth. I met his gaze with hesitation – not like I wanted to look at his face anyway – averting mine only moments after to catch what was strapped onto his belt: guns. If things ever got hairy he would know what exactly to use, but so would I.

"Refill, Steve." Looking directly into the sinful glint in his eyes, I said, "This guy too. Same bottle."

As if sensing the tension, he complied with a small "Heyoo...?" but my attention was on the man who seemed amused, at most. The next thing he said happened to be: "How'd you know I wanted that one?"

_What an asshole._  "Same reason you asked for my refill. You didn't." Clocking this guy in the jaw would definitely be the highlight of my day.

"Fair enough." Stop talking to me. "Say, girl, what you got there?"

His foot nudged at the sheathed sword near my foot, paying no mind to me but the prize at hand. I would have held more pride over what he couldn't have, but knowing that me using that sword was a result of Zer0 looking cool using his own was embarrassing. Also, if I indulged that information, there would be a chance that I would not stop talking about how great Zer0 is, and I absolutely fucking loathed this guy enough to not take that risk. Inflicting little pain on him as a result of the 'oh I can't admit that I'm a loser so I'll just hit you and deny it instead' rule did not sit well for me, considering I was seconds away from wiping that stupid smirk off his face.

"Ayo, Rodrick, lookit here!" At his call, a man approached the two of us, clothes dirty and his walk in a strut. I immediately foretold that I would hate this guy as well. What could I say, I was psychic. "Girls got a sword!" 

"You a Vault Hunter?" Fun fact: apparently, if you carry a sword on you, that automatically makes you a Vault Hunter.

I thought that guy crossed the line when he ordered a refill for me, but he just  _had_  to, he said, he just  _had_  to reach out and attempt to grab my possession. In my terms, that meant that I  _had_  to punch him in the face, and there wasn't any shame in having to kill him either. With that thought in mind, my foot happened to accidentally block it from him, my hair tie between my teeth as I bunched up my hair in my hands. 

"Yo, Steve!" I called out, nails tracing the marks left from my hair tie on my left wrist. 

"Heyoo...!" He shook his head feverishly, for Steve is not too fond of violence.

"Sorry, Steve," I told him, grinning, before I kneed the guy right where it hurt.

My grin only widened as his glass shattered into small pieces, scattering along the floor near his writhing body. Watching him, in his pathetic glory, cupping that useless spot in between his thighs was arguably the most entertaining sight in my life. I had come to the conclusion that there is no sight greater than the sight of karma fucking over your worst enemy. Similarly, it looked like my bout of victory wouldn't last long, since burly men ranging from angered, amused, and slightly turned on stood from their tables. From my wonderful observations alone, I have found that karma rolls around full circle; I probably pissed off the majority of the people in this pub.

"So, um... who wants to go first?" I asked, swallowing up the fear that threatened to surface. 

With a cry, the man sitting next to me – who bounced back rather fast for the irreversible damage I must have done to his jewels – had already charged forward with clenched fists. By the time his right fist was two inches from my face, my feet already slid to the left and away from the attack. Who knew that sliding to the left like you're doing the cha cha slide would reward you with  _zero punches to the face?_  Wow!

Seeing him, whose name I still haven't found out and never will, sprawled over the counter and drowning in humiliation would have been so much better if someone else hadn't joined the fight. I could practically hear the grinding of his teeth in comparison to the many stools and chairs in their conquest to emit the most grating, loud noises upon moving. Perhaps it was a decoy, a deception to keep one sound hidden. Wasn't until a few seconds later that I realized: the people shuffling around in their stools and chairs only wanted to get a piece of the action.

The next noise I struggled to hear because of people resorting to fighting for seats was something akin to a dagger sliding out of its sheath, metal brushing against metal, and I had roughly two seconds to think about my next course of action. This meant making a grab at my sword located snugly underneath the bar, and accidentally shoving the handle right in the guys face upon taking it out of its sheath.  _It wasn't as if I had been using this sword for almost ten years and that I should long be adept at using it by now, not at all..._

As he fell, ultimately bringing the table near him down in the process, all I could say was: "Oops?"

You would think that after so many years of actively participating in bar fights I eventually would have dug myself to an early grave, if I was lucky enough to even have one. I knew sooner or later my life would inevitably lead up to that, regardless of whether or not my final breath reached the creases of wooden, stained with alcohol floors, but the likeliness of that happening slowly dwindled over the next few months. A death such as that didn't seem too likely when you were caught up in a race to find a vault.

The thought of it never crossed my mind, not while I was busy kicking some serious ass at pubs or fulfilling countless bounties. Hunting for a vault was a serious business, one I was sure to stay far away from. The life of bounty hunting wasn't as bad as everyone thought it was. Only if you got caught up in something you shouldn't have was it bad. I found it hard to figure out whether or not my demise was inevitable because I never put much thought in the notion of actually crossing a Hyperion. 

There was no time to dwell on that, however, since  _that_  didn't come until much later. With my sword tucked in the crook of my left arm, my ears relished in the sound of the bones in my knuckles cracking, my fingers trembling with the feeling. Two more men rushed at me under the illusion that I was vulnerable, but it took a simple smack, hands grasping at the swords' hilt like it was a lifeline as the handle had collided with their face. It took that, and the hilt accidentally crashing into my left side,  _but that wasn't something we had to talk about ever again._

Within the span of about five seconds, food, bodies, and – because of some redneck not leaving his house without them – darts were thrown across the bar. Truly, there was never an act of chaos such as one in bar fights. It was as if no one participated for any reason other than the fact that it was  _fun._ You could beat the shit out of anyone, and not get any repercussions for it. The only rule being that there were no rules, everyone was free to do anything they wanted. As you were fighting, you could hear the booming guffaws of joy, the sound of metal clashing against metal. If the death of your enemy was included, then that was just fine.

Just moments later, my hand was waving at Steve in a nonchalant farewell, as if I hadn't destroyed everyone and everything inside. I kept on despite knowing this, floors creaking under my weight as I stepped over bodies of men who just couldn't catch a break. A grin, one so wide I'd have easily mistaken for the start of boisterous laughter, broke out on my face. My hands trembled, an act that never seemed to wear off even when my once high expectations slowly began to lessen. 

To me, this was my life: hopping in between bars for a decent drink, bounty hunting, and spending the rest of my time with Eris. Many consider that a shitty life because why live a shit life when you could live a  _better_  one and sell your soul to the devil for it? In regards to whether or not I actually believed in that, I was content with where my life was going. I lived a life of no luxury, yet I had the greatest one there was: freedom to explore. I thought that freedom, and my best friend were all I ever needed in life. I was sure of that, even when I met those two Pandoran con artists and those two asshats from Helios – which was a planet founded by Hyperion, mind you – but like all good things, the sweet life I dreamed of would turn just as sour the moment I said...

"Ten million dollars, you say? Fuck it. I'm in."


	2. A... Deal of a Lifetime?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Fucking Hyperions. Fucking Pandorans.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so so much for reading! I'm excited to finally continue this (I know I'm so late oh god please forgive me) !!!! Enjoy!

I had been told by many that I suffered from something akin to anger issues. Regardless of the fact that I found that to be bullshit, it made sense that my 'anger issues' stemmed from years of beating payment out of people who chose to back out of – what I call it – a temporary alliance. In my eyes, I didn't care if you were a part of Hyperion – you were still kind of an asshole – or if you were a psycho. What was important was the payment I got at the end of it, and me being a Promethean native certainly left people satisfied knowing I hauled ass across Pandora just for them. It isn't an easy life, something I said to a friend when asked about my 'anger issues'. It was either that, or 'accidentally' pushing him out of the caravan.

You could imagine that it took all it could for me to not chuck the tablet in my hands at a random skag, thus ending the conversation at hand, but eventually leading to my demise as a target of Hyperion. No one ever can be that stupid, unless you're a Vault Hunter; in that case, you brought that on yourself. You could say that, if I had never accepted the bounty from that lazy Hyperion, I would not be in this situation: dying of heat, listening to some old fart brag about his position and the fact that if I didn't give him the vault key as planned, he would find me, and he would kill me. With those words alone, I can conclude that their threats are just as shitty as their movie references.

Not to say that you should ignore threats by Hyperion; as a bounty hunter of many years, this is all I can tell you: don't. Kids, don't let your imagination run wild for this one, this is a problem adults can't even handle. No point in risking your life destroying a company that manufactures the weapons that you may kill one,  _maybe_  two Hyperions with. You have no other choice than to submit to them – if you can't beat 'em, join 'em – or to attempt to get by using illegal means. This is the majority of Pandora's inhabitants, believe it or not. You would think they would have taken the first ship to Helios...

As I pondered the advice I imagined ending up beside me in my grave, my skin prickled, the hairs spiking up to tower the bumps on my arms and legs as I was forced to listen to nothing but the chiming in of the breeze. My poorly painted fingernails, bitten down to the nub from countless events of stress, could no longer feel the low hum of the tablet. My boots halted their movement by a small lake in the broad desert, the only lake I've seen in miles, beads of sweat crawling into the collar of my jacket as if they were shivering in the cold. All I had to do next was avert my gaze to the face inside the tablet, lips tugged into a frown to counter his look of irritation. Not gonna lie, that may have sent a few shivers down my spine.

His grin was wide. "Tired of me already? Get this job done right and you won't have to be. You got 10 million on the line, baby, so best listen to me, kay?"

Never mind the fact that he almost sounded like a certain Hyperion dictator – handsome, I must say – he was right. I had never took on a job with this much on the line before, only a few jobs here and there in the area. It was a favor no one dared to accept, and I would happen to stroll past the lone, crumpled up paper on the board every time. I wasn't in it for the money, but the chance the deal gave to me: enough cash for a trip to Promethea. In other words,  _of course_  I was in it for the money. I was sure many others were as well before they kicked it or decided working for a Hyperion wasn't worth it.

For a woman with anger issues, I had lots of patience. "I was listening,  _kay_?" Of course, I wasn't, but there was no way I was admitting that.

"Remind me what I told you when you first gave me your services," he said, his hazel eyes glinting with his apparent superiority. "C'mon, little one, humor me."

"I'm twenty-seven, you prick," I grumbled.

Beating the back of the tablet on my palm, I walked on, the sign labeled appropriately as 'Prosperity Junction' only ten minutes away. This also meant that hearing _"Conversation is key conversation is key conversation is key conversation is key, c'mon, you remember this don't you blah blah blah..."_ would come to an end soon. At the notion of it, I couldn't help but leap happily, boots kicking the sand underneath behind me as I made my way to the run down, dusty village. His rough and guttural voice – I kind of forgot his name, but whatever – was loud, and indignant at me ignoring him. When I pressed the camera of the tablet against my chest he didn't seem to have much of a problem anymore. Even when a high end, Hyperion issued car had trailed along right next to me at the same pace as mine.

"Hey, she seems friendly." A cheerful, young voice observed. "I mean, for a Pandoran, anyway. You think she'll—"

"Vaughn, bro, we're on Pandora," another voice pointed out, silvery and oh so pleasing to the ears, but with the telltale attitude of a Hyperion loser, "but... it doesn't hurt to ask, I think?"

 The other one, Vaughn, wasn't so sure at that point. "Yeah, if you don't count the slowly... cutting your face off and wearing it to sleep type of thing."

 At his words of uncertainty, the corner of my lips couldn't help but form a grin, my blue eyes glinting as the sun observed the scene from up ahead. I could imagine Eris standing right beside me, her baby blues furrowing at me prolonging this conversation when she would have left long ago. I could just imagine it: eyes rolling in an attempt to defy her, but holding that certain longing to be somewhat like her. I would follow her, I know that much because I'd be on my knees if it meant her satisfaction. However, she wasn't with me, so I had no choice but to be my own person for the time being. In the end, I had come to the conclusion that being without Eris is not good for my mind, or movie references.

 So I stayed behind, deciding to humor them. "You know I can hear you, right?"

 The man sitting in the passenger seat of the car rolled down his window, all the way down to where I can see the other inhabitant in the drivers seat. Clutching the tablet against my chest, my hooded eyes scrutinized their lanky, slim figures. My own gaze traveling to the seemingly younger man, I watched with interest as he used his free hand – one with handcuffs that wasn't loosely wrapping itself around his wrist – to fiddle with the cuffs of his sleeves. Deciding to not dwell on the grip he held on the handles of his suitcase, I kept on with my inspection, up to the black – or was it green like my jacket? – vest he wore to enforce the 'I'm from Hyperion, so I'm kinda an asshole by default' trope. When I finally returned his grin with a frown off of my own lips, he averted his gaze just as quickly and muttered out a name.

"Um... Hello," I began, trailing off with a few cackles, shuffling my irises on every other object in this vicinity but their faces. "I'm... uh..."  _Do not introduce yourself, Noah, don't do it don't do it..._  "I'm nobody."  _Well, there  went any amount of social skill I had._

The man in the drivers seat didn't take what I said too kindly. "Well, 'Nobody', can you tell us how to get to the... World of Curiosities?"

The tablet in my arms grew hot at the very mention of it, but my eyes were as wide as ever, teeth biting on my thumbnail to mask the smile growing on my lips. The Hyperion accountant and I were silent, and I could tell his ears were perking up like mine in search for more information. Yet, Rhys' – I couldn't help but listen in on what they tried to keep from me – mouth was moving, repeating his statement, and I was in my own little world consisting of what was ahead of me. As bad as it sounded, the Hyperion workers before me were inadequate, easy to handle in case of a bad situation in my eyes. However, I should have dwelled on the low probability of a guy like the two of them being CEO of a large, tyrannical company such as Hyperion.

This deal had already begun to fall apart at the seams, and I had no idea. "It says so on this huge sign."  _One that is behind another huge sign..._  "You can't miss it!"  _You most certainly can..._

"Thanks!" The younger one of the two men, Vaughn, said.

Returning his polite and genuine demeanor with a beam of my own, my hair flew in the direction of where they sped off to, hands threading through my bangs and pushing it to the side so it wouldn't obscure my vision. Satisfied with the result, I raised the tablet high in the air so my client and I could meet face to face, sharing the same expression and the same idea as he did.

We certainly didn't share those views when I said this: "You know what, I think I'm done talking with Hyperions for the day."

His voice raising even higher than before at my sudden declaration, the tip of my finger pressed down on the red, circular button in the corner, ending the conversation as I saw fit. Shoving the tablet into my pocket, since I wasn't ready to throw it in the ocean just yet, I kept on with my journey to my destination: Prosperity Junction. Specifically, it was the the exact same place I may or may not have lied about it being so easy to find.

* * *

 

Whistling a tune of determination sounding faintly like one from a game with monsters, the leaves crunched beneath my right foot as my other stepped over dead bodies that littered the sinful, barren ground of the town. Looking down, it didn't take long for me to realize there were no leaves, just the bones cracking under the pressure of my boot. In just ten minutes, I figured, many bandits had fallen wrath to an unknown suspect, and I  _missed it._ Others holed themselves in their houses, heads peeking out to assess what happened only to find blood – thank God it isn't theirs – coating their walls. Judging by how quickly I heard the door slam shut, they came to this conclusion:  _yeah, let's not._

So the next words to come out of my mouth were: "If I had to go with too much blood or too little, I'd go with the splatter..."  _Oh Christ, here we go._

I was ashamed, so ashamed that as soon as I felt a hand wrap around my ankle, I began to cry out what everyone in town was thinking: "God... Christ! I know it was god awful but you really didn't have to do that!" and promptly shake off his grip. Before I could pull my katana out of its sheath, the man before me spit out the sand in his mouth before murmuring words to himself, unintelligible. My eyes narrowing at his actions, I dropped to my knees, rocks burying themselves into my skin. Having no regards to this, despite it being painful and bothersome to deal with, I had a desire to hear what he had to say.

"Hyperions... those..." His body was shaking, that sticky, red substance I knew all too well painting his lips. "those... bastards..."

When he mentioned 'ten million', I no longer cared about what he had to say next. What he said only confirmed it for me, those two Hyperion workers were part of the deal, and they were the ones that caused all of this. I had absolutely no idea, at the time, how the two scrawny dorks in that car did it, but they managed to do more than just kill some of these bandits. That fact on its own made me wonder what else they could do, and what power they had at their disposal. That fact was horrifying, more so than this deal I was about to get myself to.

Of course, like all of the bandits in this rotten planet, this man had to waste his last breath on me, leaping at me to get his piece. At that point, all I had to do was roll out of the way, and watch him as he scrambled in his spot in the sand. Accordingly, his movements surely became rigid as a result of using the last of his energy on a bounty hunter. With a small smile, cracking the bones under the skin of my fingers, I made my way towards him with the handle of my katana finally in my grasp.

"Y'know what I hate more than Hyperions?" I began, stopping near his feet. "I really,  _really_  hate bandits... and I gotta tell you something else." With a suffering sigh, I plunged the tip of my sword into his back, sneering at him all the while as his sounds of protest faded. "I'm a goddamn bounty hunter."

Not that it matters, considering none of that even happened. At this point, it is safe to say that I have been lying more about my part of the story than the other two in the so called trio. In the end, people are going to have to deal with my shenanigans – I hate that word; I have no idea why I'm using it – listening to me lie over and over while I replay it all in my head. As time goes by, lying will become less and less bearable; for who, it didn't matter.

What really happened was when the bandit leapt at my being, I was caught off guard at his sudden movements, my eyes wide as he tackled me to the ground. His hands were closing around my throat, sticky with blood. He must have been living off of adrenaline since I was in no way expecting his grip to be so strong. My throat was closing up on me, and spots began to jump around my vision as my fingers tried to pry his off. His eyes, the only part of his face I could see behind the mask, were squinting, trying to hold on to the last of what was keeping him alive. A good ol' kick to the family jewels fixed that quite fast. Just as quickly, I took the chance to slide my katana out of its sheath located in the straps in the back of my jacket – very convenient sword holder, I must say – and stopped the erratic beats of his heart. His eyes were as wide as mine was, unable to keep his eyes off of me as my body shook, trying to maintain my breath. In return, my gaze sat on the blood staining his suit, his chest raising once, twice, before it dropped completely.

My knees could only give out, fingers tracing the design on what saved my life just now. I held the charm attached to it so firmly that I wasn't surprised it was digging into the palm of my hand. After a much needed moment to myself, the soles of my brown boots finally found the ground, fingers wiping the stains off of the sharp ends of my weapon. Sliding it back inside my sheath, black with complex and intricate designs like the handle itself, I did what I had to do, and kept on. Yet I could not shake this feeling, one of loneliness, one I didn't want to admit.

I missed Eris.

* * *

 

One after another, my feet stepped higher on the ladder bars, ears perking up at any sound. From the sound of it, the deal had long since begun, a woman's voice rather high with suspicion getting lower in volume as the building commanded it. Besides her, the voices that followed were familiar, as I only just spent my kindness giving them false information moments ago. As I was climbing up the long, tedious ladder to the top of the World of Curiosities, what was beyond my knowledge would be the next few moments that followed.

"Hello! What are you—" Squeaking, I raised my foot and shoved it right into whoever's face was under me. 

Slapping my hand against my mouth, my neck couldn't help but sneak a glance over my shoulder at the man on the ground. I watched him, and watched him, until he finally moved the slightest inch and sent a sickly sweet smile at my direction. My lips, moist with lip balm, were clearly more well off than his. Skinny with apparent delirium and dehydration, he jumped to his feet, my nose breathing in the last of this town's air. Even so, that stupid smile wouldn't wipe off his face, even when I narrowed my eyes at him.

"Hi, Noah!"

"Aw, shit." Yet another perk of being a bounty hunter shows itself; you catch all of the ones that were more or less off the walls in terms of mentality. "Hi... Shade..."

"You didn't tell me when you were visiting! Oh, I gotta tell Frank—"

"Shade, no,  _no_  you don't." I said, cringing at every word out of his mouth. "I... I talked to Frank already."  _Frank is dead, like everyone else in Oasis..._

Nonetheless, words just kept on spewing out of his mouth like bullets, and I couldn't even bother to stay for the rest of his monologue. Advising the delirious, and lonely man not to follow after me, I continued my long trek up the ladder. Apparently Shade was talking so much that he did not care to listen, climbing up the same ladder to butt into business that wasn't his. The number of voices inside were dwindling as I climbed, leading me to go up the ladder even faster than before. For that reason, and the reason of wanting Shade to get the hint, I was up that latter in less than five seconds. If Shade kept his mouth shut for once, my spot on the rooftop could prove to be a efficient hiding spot if shit hit the fan.

I could feel my heart racing, the hairs of my skin raising with anticipation. Just below me was not the deal of a lifetime, but a chance to have the answers to my past within my grasp. If I could get my hands on the Vault Key, I wouldn't have to worry about the trip to Promethea because I'd actually have the cash to make the travel there and back. This key would not only be the key to a vault, but the key to what I have been asking myself this entire time: who was the Vault Hunter that knew me?

Turned out I wouldn't know the answer to that question for a while because of Rhys' hand holding the Vault Key deciding to lose control at the wrong place, and the wrong time. Why do I say that, you ask? Because of said hand going haywire, the Vault Key fell to the ground. Additionally, Vault Keys are supposed to be durable, and physically  _real_. This one, seemingly painted with addictive eridium, was none of these things. What was also not durable and real like this stupid key was my current mental state. At this point, even my reaction to this was a joke because I couldn't comprehend this happening. 

_It was a fake. It was a fake. It was a fake. It was a fake. It was a fake it was a fake it was a fake it was a fake it was a fake it was a fake it was a fake._

Whether I was angered or horrified was a question in itself. "What  _is_  that?"

"Well, ma'am, if my eyes aren't mistaken..." To add, Shade fiddled with the handle of his glasses. "I think that's a fake Vault—"

Gripping tufts of hair into the palms of my hands, my feet paced around the rooftop of the World of Curiosities. All the while, the only words that could escape my lips were, "Oh god, it's a fake. It's a fake..." The fact that I couldn't care less what the Hyperion would do to me once he found out was not at all fright inducing enough compared to what I was about to do to this band of idiots below me. What they didn't know was that, what they considered was a loss of money, was my one and only ticket to the infamous, undesirably inhabited planet of Promethea.

The breeze is crisp for a town surrounded by the desert, complementing the tension that was brought about by what was now on the floor. I was lucky not to be in the middle of it, shivering at the glower the pair of Hyperions directed at the pair of Pandorans. However, I was in an even more unfortunate situation at the moment: words from the man beside me were reaching my ears when I didn't want it to. My name was like a mantra for his tongue even as my right foot hung off the edge, leg swaying as if it didn't regard the solid ground below. There were no words to describe the reason why my body couldn't stop quivering. Was it that I lost my chance to hightail it out of Pandora and go back home? Was it that I would no doubt be punished if I divulged the fact that, upon approaching the deal, I found out the key was a fake even if I intended to run off with it from the beginning? 

My cheeks, rosy with the blush I put on that morning, grew tight and lost its color.  _What would Eris say? Would she be upset with my apparent stupidity? Why did I care so much about what she thought of me? Oh, right._

"Hey!" I should have walked away. I should have approached the nearest cliff and leapt off so I wouldn't have to be punished. "Over here!"

Instead of at each other, all of the undivided attention belonged to me, faces mixing from confused and just plain stupefied at realizing who I was. Hands on my hips, I returned the gaze with just as much anger. They thought they were looking at just another person with a chance to make it big. What they couldn't realize, with such a small stature and puffed out cheeks, was that I didn't approach this deal to  _not_  get what I wanted in the end.

Then I found the suitcase on the table near some sort of vent, and it didn't take me long to figure out what was inside. The suitcase the guy in the passengers seat clutched so tightly against him? The phrase the dying man coughed out before I took his life? The two were connected to what many thought "was no object", and it was what flung me into this mess in the first place. Accordingly, my feet sunk into the cobble below me as the left foot went behind the other, prepared to fling myself over the edge with possibly the worst grace and elegance anyone ever has seen.

For once, Shade was puzzled at my sudden movement. "Noah, where are you—"

Once my feet left the ground and over the heads of the two Hyperion and Pandorans' striking the deal, the man behind me shut right up. The same could be said for them, the group of four below me, since they had abandoned the sake of killing each other to follow my flight with the most dumbfounded expressions. If I wasn't attempting to ignore the guy, my lips would have tugged just a bit upwards at the fact that Shade said, "That... that is badass!"

Now if I just averted my gaze just a bit to the right, I would have noticed the tank barreling towards the meeting spot faster than I was falling to the ground. If I relied on my hearing just a bit more, I would have heard the beat drop, bobbing my head to the music while in the air. I was in no way prepared – the soles of my boots weren't comfortably against the dusty floors just yet – when that same, huge tank plowed through the raggedy 'Welcome to Oasis' sign. The appearance of Bossanova resulted in a less desirable part of my body hitting the floor: my shoulder, which was still sore from my last job. Seething out a curse or two couldn't begin to cover it, especially when I found that the tank was coming my way and showed no signs of stopping.

The tires of the tank halted their drift just in time, my eyes wide as I stared at the silver plated wheels only a few inches in my view. Before I could shrink back and retrieve the suitcase already, a gloved hand the size of my figure pinched their fingers at my jacket collar, lifting me to their faces. The dubstep was as loud as it could be, hands cupping my ears as the booming laugh of Bossanova and the bandits below my feet rendered all hearing and focus useless.

"Let me go! Lemme go!" I screeched, fingers pulling at his larger ones with no avail. "One time! It was  _one time!"_

"You're gonna pay, little one!" Bossanova guffawed, shaking me violently and teasing me by dropping me lower towards his group of bandits with hunger in their eyes. "I finally gotcha!"

"Hey!" My feet wrapped themselves around the arm holding me up, eyes still on the case on the ground. To no one's surprise, my eyes were on the prize rather than the obvious danger I was in. Wasn't much of a help when Bossanova decided to address me as 'little one' because who could forget a  _five foot four, twenty seven year old woman_  stealing all the gold she could out of their precious safe? "I'm  _not_  little, asshole!"

It was only a matter of time before someone made a grab for that suitcase, and the mere thought of it resulted in me struggling even more. The tension building up between the armored gang leader and me wasn't the end of the wreckage this deal turned out to be because another unknown challenger decided to barge into the chaos that was unfolding. As angry as I should have been that I wasn't the only one who was aware of this deal of a lifetime, no complaints reached my lips when I saw who jumped into the party. How could they, when none other than the famous Zer0 was the last one to make his presence known?

My reaction, well... "Holy shit." Was what escaped from my lips. "Hoooooly shit... Holy shit."

Unfortunately for me, that reaction was no lie. At the mere sight of the assassin, my steel blue irises were wider than in the face of danger I was in just a few moments ago. My body went rigid, no longer in a hysterical struggle to be set free. My thighs halted the act of defiance – if you could call wrapping themselves around the arm of a guy who could possibly crush me defiance – instead settling on hanging aimlessly, slowly as if their reputation depended on it. If my eyes weren't about to tear up over losing the deal, there was a huge possibility they would have when Zer0's neck craned towards my small figure.

Zer0's presence was just enough to divert the hullabaloo over the suitcase to him. In what I figured a loss of interest, Bossanova lost the hold he had on my collar, both his and his bandit buddies looking over to the newfound reason of the commotion. Even I didn't know the relationship the two had; it had to be something special because the burly, huge, dubstep loving guy didn't just let people who threatened his state of being go scot free.

The moment my side met the cold embrace of the ground, something I might have well have gotten used to at this point, one could guess which object my attention was locked onto. One could also imagine that I wouldn't be the only one eyeing the suitcase; looking up ever so slightly led me to the eyes of one tall, mostly leg, Hyperion. Like me, he must have been under Zer0's spell – except I will always be the better, bigger fan – but there was nothing in his narrowed eyes, his frown, to show that he had been, only irritation and something akin to surprise.

I returned what I thought was anger in the most childish way: sticking my tongue out and sending a wink his way. That was when, in the midst of all of the chaos, I began my mad scramble for the suitcase sitting only a few feet away, leaping towards it just as the uncertain Hyperion man did. He lost his own spot concealing himself behind some rusty, broken down vending machine just to make a grab for what was already mine. The case was already in my possession the moment my tallest fingers curled around the edge of it, the law of science rolling in my favor as it retreated from its position from laying flat on the floor, and into my arms.

A small but evident pulse of relief traveled along my skin, the bumps losing its rough, fine texture until I caught the movement of the Hyperion's right, blue eye – an implant, to be exact. That frown never left his lips, but so didn't the frantic activity that began to take place. A bounty hunter was all too aware of an eye implant like that; an ECHO eye had many purposes for Hyperion, but one that stuck out like a sore thumb was, coincidentally, the exact same tool that was currently revealing all of my secrets.

" _Eris_ ," he said. "I'll keep that in mind."

Eris did a spectacular job of messing with the records, I imagined. "Alright,  _Rhys_." I said, the corner of my lips tugged into a victorious grin.

The bullet whizzing past my ear was as clear a sign as any that my time here was coming to a close. In times of oncoming danger like these, what I had chained to my pocket was quite handy. Raising it high above my head, my fingers wrapped itself tightly around the trigger, claws bursting from its cage to latch onto the opening of the roof above. What I found convenient about this grappling hook was that it took me with it to its destination, my body above the ground once more with the beloved suitcase in hand. Of course, it didn't sit too well that a five foot four woman decided to take the case and just as easily run off with it. Accordingly, upon my landing on top of the various minerals and pebbles sitting on the roof, I found three holes in my jacket, all out of shape, jagged, and singed. Whoever shot at me – October, or whatever his name was – caught me on a bad day, not to brag.

Unfortunately for Shade, so did he because his mouth was open and closed the minute I showed up, and yet I did not reply nor listen to a single word he said. The sound of each bullet hitting the ground, or the bandits were what was left of the deal now, as was what I held closely to my chest. It was no Vault Key, but Hyperion's are greedy; money was just money to them no matter how you looked at it. They could probably buy another one if they really wanted to, or go beg some other confused, insatiable bounty hunter to steal one for them.

The noise was so deafening I couldn't stand it. From Shade's never ending blabber about how nice a day it was to the mayhem down below consisting of bullets, slicing of flesh, and screams, I could no longer take it. I was never one for crowds, and this situation was no different. Not to my surprise, I was easily more irritated at the man beside me, going on and on like never before. The commotion inside the World of Curiosities was annoying, like all bandits were, and what I found to be so repetitive was the shot of a bullet, then a scream, then a bullet, then a scream,  _over and over._  My brain shut itself down – there was a pulse thumping slowly, but painfully in my head – in an attempt to block the noise out, and I did what I always have been for years.

I ran, leaving the chaos behind me for some much needed peace. Unlike what transpired in The Holy Spirits bar just days before, it seemed like I left my certainty, my courage behind me too. I climbed down that ladder – quickly, but surely mind you – and I didn't notice before, but...

I couldn't stop shaking. 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Undertale. I love Undertale. Who caught that reference? Also, it's 3:00 am and I am currently dying rip. Hope you enjoyed!!!


	3. Don't Make Me Beg

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> You never felt so alive, but so broken at the same time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You guys waited for so long for this... some of you guys probably abandoned this, others stayed but... I'm back! And I want to be sure to update regularly from now on. Thank you so much for your patience, I worked so hard on this so I hope you like it!

How long I was trudging through the sands of Pandora with the prized suitcase ruining what posture I had left was beyond me. All that I could notice was the sun falling down behind the mountains, the clouds of many different hues a series of patched up rolls gradually joining with each other. The long trek was grounded to a halt in the middle of nowhere as the hot, blazing day dropped into a cold, silent night. It was as if Pandora threw away the chaos and the corruption in favor of one night of peace and quiet. You could have easily mistaken Pandora to be a planet of tranquility if you found yourself in such a situation – stuck under a profound loneliness where no one on this cruel, harsh planet could give you the remedy. Pandora was so dangerous because _people_ had no problems taking what wasn't theirs. _People_ were loud, disorderly, bustling with a lack of control.

_I_ was nothing, not without my partner in time I had come to know for these sixteen years. I used to think I was dangerous on my own – if you could beat the living shit out of the most burliest, merciless guys in a bar, there would be no room for discussion – but I knew there was a weakness I had that came in the form of a woman named Eris. With her around, my tears didn't threaten to fall. With her nearby, I somehow knew I'd be okay; Eris seemed to always be able to give off the impression that your heart would never hurt if she was around.

My knees gave out from under me, the low and continuous sound of an engine running fading away before it could reach my ears. The potential way to safety lost against the humming and quivering of the tablet in my hands, the name on the screen causing my own body to tremble. The suitcase nearby was forgotten, slowly burying itself deeper into the sand as if it wanted to conceal itself from the caller, an action I should have been doing. My hands clenched around the sides, my thumbs pushing down on the screen in an attempt to break the damn thing. It was almost as if the heat beating on my fingers was taunting my very being, the idea of this tablet practically threatening whatever life I had before this deal.

You know how sometimes in times of havoc, a light in some shape or form swoops down to save you, to give you an idea that averts the chaos fate has given you? Not only was my life saved from potential insanity due to this light from above, but I was also _blinded_ for a few seconds, my right arm reaching up to shield my vision. What breath I had left in me came to an abrupt stop once I heard the click of a car door opening, the tiny bumps on my arm growing more evident with both the appearance of the unknown and the low breeze amplifying to bitter, sharp winds. No words were said between us yet, but there was no need because the silence between us would soon prove to be as comforting as her _telling_ me she loves me, that everything will be okay. So when I felt her fingers tug on my earlobe in the most childish, oddest way to get my attention, tears couldn't help but form in the corners of my eyes. 

"I'm not gonna say I told you so," she said, her freshly done nails digging into my wrist as she pulled me to my feet, "but I told you so." There was no use in retorting because she was right, like always, so I wrapped my arms around her middle a bit tighter than I normally would. "Too... T-Too tight, Noah..."

Didn't think it was too hard of an embrace, but I loosened my hold, with Eris deciding to ruin the grand reunion between two friends by stating, "You look like shit."

This friendship is over. "Well... you're old." 

It was as if I was a comedian standing on the stage, waiting for a sound of approval from the audience, but receiving nothing. You sit there and look like a complete idiot because it's not like your retorts are good anyway. In the end, you go home and sort of cry since thats the only time people will actually laugh at your jokes because _life itself_ is a joke. This happened to be the case with Eris, her eyes right on the prize – the suitcase just sitting in the golden sand. Her wide baby blues fell on the suitcase, then to the grin tugging on my face, then back at the million dollar case with her cheeks so stretched out by her lips beginning to form that familiar 'o' shape you would think she had been on her knees lots of times during her life.

To quote my favorite, arguably otherworldly, assassin: Yes.  _Innuendo_.

What Eris was thinking was clear enough in my eyes, my hands slipping into my cotton material pockets as my eyebrow rose at her becoming such a stammering mess before me. My eyes gazed upon her form, cheeks growing warm at the surprise on Eris' face. She seemed embarrassed, ashamed even, because I knew she thought I couldn't pull this deal off. The number of seconds grew with each unspoken word, _1... 2... 3... 4,_ to the point where even I wondered when she would finally realize there was no Vault Key on my person.

_5... 6... 7..._ "Uh, Noah?"A low hum bubbled up in my throat, proof that I was listening to my friend. " _Where_ is the Vault Key?"

"Y'see, that's the problem." I couldn't meet her baby blues, nails tracing the bumps on my right arm. "I... I don't have it because... because it was a fake."

Eris' eyes were the widest they've ever been and I couldn't help but think I was the one at fault. My naturally rosy cheeks lost its color just as hers lost its warmth. I could hear her sudden intake of breath, hands clutching at her leather clad sides. Her words, I assumed, were embedded deep into her throat with no hope of getting out until, "What? N-Noah, do you know what this means for you? You're— Oh god..."

Her hands met with my shoulders, her nails once again digging into my shoulders with a feeling akin to desperation. My feet planted themselves firmly into the sand as she shook me, unable to look at the specks of eyeliner trailing down her face after her tears. Now I was the one who felt ashamed of my actions because I was the one who caused this turn of events; I had to force myself to watch my best friend as she feared for my pathetic life.  It was shameful of me, losing your words at the worst of times, and only able to behold the sight of Eris crying because you're going to lose your life over something so stupid... 

"You realize who you're working for, right? A fucking Hyperion!" I said nothing. "A _fucking Hyperion!_ When are you going to grow the up, Noah?

"... Sorry." 

Her palms rolled into a fist around the lapels of my jacket, shaking me once again. "You think this was a good idea? Don't worry, I'll wait." Again, I couldn't bear to reply, which only got her angrier. "You're going to die, you idiot, don't you care?" 

I watched her carefully as she gave up, her hands falling to her sides. The sullen look in her eyes complemented the scowl forming on my face, rolling my eyes as she whipped around towards her car. The sounds of the crickets chirping the night away was louder than her footsteps, and even louder than the silence between us. Once she climbed into her _Hyperion_ issued car, a sigh escaped my mind and body, the reason for our argument simply sitting in a pile of sand. I watched as the handle shook in the direction of the wind and made a grab for it before making my way towards the ticket out of loneliness.

Before climbing into the passenger seat of this damned car, I hurled the damned case into the back seat. When she pulled out of there, the better, calmer part of Pandora, I wondered to myself if I would ever feel this lonely again. I even wondered if I would last up to the point where I'd have the pleasure of having Eris yell at me again because you don't tend to last long when you ignore and cross a Hyperion. When you realize there is a chance to get out of Pandora you take it, and you don't dwell on any consequences there might be.

Eris spoke through the silence, her tone in a bitter, final attempt to get me to listen to her. "You're gonna crash at my place tonight, and we'll figure this out." I was about to cut her off, explaining that this mission was never a 'we' job to begin with, but... _"Together."_

My eyes rolled back into my head because it wasn't as if Eris ever listened to me, my back falling into the charcoal gray passenger seat rather harshly. Her hands gripped the wheel, fist tightening around the smooth material in what seemed as if the only way to calm her emotions down. The moon caught up to the cars fast and effortless drive towards home, eyes once blue a dull gray at the sight of the ginormous 'H' sitting comfortably above the only source of light for some. My eyes would have ended up a lot darker in hate of Helios and its company if I hadn't feared for my life at the hands of some _dumb Hyperion loser fuck asshole technician,_ or whatever he is. 

"No," I challenged, "it doesn't make sense. I can't go back... not until I—"

"What? Kill him? Take down the entirety of Helios while you're at it?" Eris seemed to not like my answer. She hid the sky behind her lashes, and gave me the pleasure of hearing one of her famous and long suffering sighs. "Please don't make me out to be the villain. I've watched over you for years, y'know. You were all I ever needed in this world."

My eyes can't help but widen at her words, my otherwise bitter and cold heart swelling at her sign of weakness. It beat so fast, so evidently, that my chest began to ache in a need for more. Sometimes people feel like this and they reject it; they refuse to let the emotion hinder the tasks at hand. I tried to most times, and I had to convince myself it all wasn't real. Then she sends me that smile of hers, that same one where she's close to laughing but she's not quite there yet; her eyes are squinted and her rosy pink cheeks puffed out as if they'll go numb any second. Then you let out your own snicker because Eris simply never laughs, she giggles like a child, and it sounds so fake but all so real at the same time.

I didn't want to fight her, so I finally kept the comments to myself, and said, "Yeah, Eris. It was always just you and I against the world."

A sound reached her throat, one that proved her amusement, and a grin fell upon her lips. "'Course it is." Her fingernails, sharp and well refined due to a recent visit to the nail salon, tangled themselves in her strawberry blonde hair. "So where we going, _Eris_?"

At her sudden, panic-stricken face, my body shook with laughter. When was the last time she hadn't tampered with Hyperion records? "How 'bout we stop at some place nearby, _Noah_?"

Her own laughter was slow, uncertain, but when she heeded my reaction she let out a signature giggle of hers. Sitting with her in that car was a like breath of fresh air; it was short but sweet. You felt renewed, your mind elsewhere, but calm and collected. But like a breath of fresh air, the happiness didn't last long.

* * *

 

Eris and I stopped at some abandoned Atlas warehouse, backs against an active, volatile crane. My foot left the ground in an attempt to look down the cliffs; the hand of the crane moving almost spastically as it destroyed a building or two. Whether or not that was on purpose was an entirely different story. The chapter of the story we were on required us to happen upon an _'abandoned but notably inhabited by every single bandit on Pandora'_ warehouse that may or not have been the easiest place to settle in. The cacophonous roar of the bandits, strident and breathy in excitement – they were more excited about the aspect of cannibalism than I was on the idea of getting paid – made me suppress a shiver. Bandits were by no means a gang to be afraid of, but I was sure lots would prefer to not have to watch their limbs becoming Thanksgiving dinner.

"Hey!" Eris' hands pushed back against the machine, her back no longer hitting the cool steel. "Sounds like someone has the same idea, eh?"

My nose scrunched up in slight discomfort because I didn't feel too content about the suitcase being in my hands in an area that would have been better off if the ten million wasn't in my grasp. Eris' head was jerking behind her, right thumb pointed over her shoulder, and she moved aside to give me an idea because I had no clue at what she was referring to. When I did steal a glance, fingers nearing some big red button that I had to fight the urge not to press, my body spun back around quite quickly because...

"Rhys," I said, nails digging into my lips, eyes downcast.

Eris must have been confused because all she said was the word: "Boyfriend?" since it was _completely_ plausible to find one in the two days I was gone. The moment I found that she wasn't kidding about the idea was the moment she dove into the drivers seat window of the vehicle that was parked near enough to be our getaway car, her behind wiggling itself as if she was digging deep to look for something. When she popped out, in her hands a pair of binoculars, I knew that Eris had the wrong idea.

Fitting them over her eyes, she fiddled with the lenses before coming to the conclusion that he might have been "... compensating for something." and then proceeded to let out an unattractive snort.

I opened my mouth to say something, but she beat me to the punch, thrilled that her best friend managed to have some fun for once in her life. Except she had to come to the realization sooner or later that I wasn't frowning or falling to my knees at the two women by Rhys' side. In fact, I was just as confused as the married woman because... well... "I'm... I'm, uh, pretty sure they _hate each other?"_ except the rag tag group of misfits, including some old geezer and two young women in their twenties were holding hands and singing songs by the campfire as if they weren't duped by a fat guy, a short bounty hunter, and a fake key just hours before, all of which could have ended up to be the perfect beginning to a joke, by the way.

The binoculars were torn from Eris' grasp – not because they fell to the ground through gravity but because I took them from her – and were pressed against the accumulative years of exhaustion underneath my eyes. I watched the four of them, sans the old guy, slide down the cliff with a clear plan in their minds as Eris and I stood by the crane with absolutely no idea what to do next. The two of us tore our gazes away from the world to each other, and I was almost thankful for the fact that she decided to because, logically, the older one of us had to come up with our next plan of action. 

We did not share that idea. "So, we're in an area where bandits roam. What now?" She told me.

My voice couldn't help but raise into tones I thought impossible. "What do you mean 'what now', _you_  drove us here!" 

My hands dragged from my forehead, down to the fat in my cheeks, until my eyes just so happened to look up at the top of the bandit base. As Eris kept blabbering on her side of the story, I heard the unmistakeable ruckus of cheers and laughter. The sound was just as clear as the night sky, save for a cloud or two, and the bones of my knuckles roughly smacked the shoulder of my dear friend, a sound akin to a grunt of acknowledgement – _I know you were talking, but I don't exactly care that you were because I happened to find a way inside the base_ – leaving me. It was one of those unmistakeable noises that you hear in a crowded street in a city. Your skin, thick and impenetrable, wears thin just as your attitude does because chaos is all you see and breathe. In the end, you find a vehicle somehow coming your way with no intentions of stopping and _who knows,_ you step just a bit to the right and the loudest, most irrelevant person in your vicinity is somehow in the place you held a moment ago.

In other words, you are chaos. "So, climb?"

"Or... we can not do that." Eris squeaked out.

"I'm not exactly sure what you're saying." 

"L-Let's turn back, Noah. It's... It's not worth it."

As soon as Eris was finished attempting to coax me out of scaling the wall to my death, my front teeth searched for what was left of my thumbnail, blue irises looking up at the broken down and rusty base. When I finally had the chance to think about what my next course of action was, it didn't take me long to figure that my level of planning was rather mediocre at best. Rhys and his 'squad' were inside, convinced I was in hiding among the anarchy that situated in the heart of what I figured was silent, with the memories of a lost company and its workers in every nook and cranny. If I could just turn around... If I could let it go and listen for once, I would be home already because that signature laugh of hers would be the foundation that would keep us going.

If only. "... Nah, that's no fun. I want to get back at Bossanova." 

Except she didn't return the grin on my face, her eyelids shut out her baby blues from my own storm. There was a sense of urgency, a complete lack of mind, as well as a hunger to ruin those who wronged me, even if some of them did everything possible to do me right. In the end, leading Bossanova to his undoing wasn't even my intention. People tend to be carefree and reckless when they know death will come sooner than they would have liked. Eris' wanted a full, fulfilling life; she wouldn't ever leave her husband, her child, or me if she could help it. That alone presented one flaw in our dynamic; the woman intended to live a life with me by her side even if I didn't deserve it.

God knows I didn't deserve it. "If you want to bail, fine. I mean, you _did_ say it was you and I against the world. If you were to turn around now... Well..." Her head shook at my words, her lips curved as if she couldn't believe in what I was implying. "I told you I was leaving. You didn't have to follow."

"Of course, 'cause this is the thanks I get for trying to save my best friend." Her body said it all: irritation, frustration. "Okay, Noah. Let's go get your dumb ass killed."

My 'best friend' left the so called 'dumb ass' there for them to follow, to make choices all on their own. If I was the dumb ass, what did that make her; the wise and older woman of us, the guiding light for the one caught up in the darkness? Eris was neither of those, she was a fool for chasing after me, a righteous woman who got too ahead of herself. In the end, there was no one who understood me better than her.

Whether that was a blessing or a curse was entirely up to me.

* * *

 

In the midst of all of the chaos stood the girl who sealed her fate by climbing into danger, the woman bind by the shackles of a lonely, desperate Hyperion man. Another a woman fighting for her right to thrive on Pandora, a life determined to pick up the broken glass that was Pandora. Behind the former was a man – Hyperion, douche – caught a slave in the destruction that lay in Handsome Jack's wake. Yet all had one trait in common: the ten million inside the suitcase was a make it or break it.

And it was long broken. "Uh, Eris?"

Eris. _Eris._  That was who I needed to focus on right now, the strawberry blonde beating her palms on the wheel of some modified pickup truck without a care in the world. The money sat on the passenger seat beside her snugly – she put a seatbelt on it – and she drove on despite the harsh bumps in the road and the two visitors duking it out on the bed of what I assumed was some weapon of non-bandit destruction. My eyes were on her the whole time as she circled the arena with speed and newfound ambition: _if these clowns want a show, I'll give em a show._

Yet one of few differences between the two of us was that Eris didn't mind the audience. "Shut up, shut up shut up..." My hand rested on top of my head, then tightened to a fist to tug at my near brown strands of hair before finally deciding to shield my eyes from what was deemed as the worst parts of Pandora. This, the booming dubstep, the ear splitting cries of a desire for chaos, motorcycles and the like speeding past _over and over_ just to win some dumb fucking race, altogether to inflict the most cacophonous racket... it was not only exhausting and unbearable, but it was oppressive.

Three sounds were added into the equation: drawn out squeaks, whirring, and most of all the _click click click_ a car makes when going up the hill of a roller coaster except this time you knew someone was going to die. Before I could even assess the situation, the front of the truck was already high above the ground because the crane holding onto Bossanova's buoyant safe haven was playing a little game called tug of war, and it was winning. A game it must have been, for my attention wasn't on my dear friend but rather the prize that fell from her grasp. Zer0 never stood a chance after that fact. 

"Eris!" Somehow that name wasn't escaping my lips but from a certain Hyperion's. Why he decided he was important enough to talk to me... well, let's just say I'm glad he did. 

"Keep your mouth shut, thanks!" I barked, too prideful to return his gaze. "And for the record, _Hyperion_ , the name's Noah! Y'know, so you can write who fucked up your deal on your tombstone or something!"

"Uh, okay? We kind of have more pressing matters to deal with, like... how you should probably step back!" He must have cupped his hands around his lips because my ears registered his voice straightaway. "Uh, you need to look up right now!"

Absolutely appalled and vexed, my lips were tugged into a frown. "... Don't tell me what to do." I muttered into the lapel of my jacket. In an attempt to indulge the frightful reality that maybe I should listen to the Hyperion loser, I craned my neck up at the sky and declared, "Well, that's not good." because that same safe haven of Bossanova's was right above my head and ready to end months of _I can't believe this kid keeps getting away with my gold I hate her it's mine!_ except that kid is twenty seven and the gold wasn't his in the first place. 

Yet...

_Stop. Rewind. Go back to the beginning._

It didn't take long for Bossanova to heed the way our heads popped out from outside the arena, Eris managing to throw her arms over the edge instead of only being able to stand on her tippy toes to get a glimpse inside... it was one of the woes of being short. If either of us were to misplace one foot and slip off what little bit of ledge was there for us, then there was no saving the other, more secure one because Eris somehow attached herself to my jacket like glue. Yet that was the least of our worries, considering it took the leader mere minutes to spread awareness of a 5'4 woman clinging onto the edge because she was stuck with a heavy suitcase consisting of ten million on one hand and Eris on the other.

You would have never guessed this stadium was once one of many warehouses from a forgotten company because little to nothing was preserved when it was reclaimed. Now under bandit rule, it was made to be some dump of sick entertainment and dirt races. The audience were stationed outside of it, surrounding any unlucky outsider who had no choice but to race for their lives. Smack dab in the inside circle were junk, totaled cars, remnants of a less shittier planet, and who knows where the inner _inner_ circle led to...

Witnessing thousands of bandits turn your way was one thing, but Bossanova was not done; in fact, I could only tighten my grasp on the border of the stadium – I wanted to climb inside but with my height that wasn't happening without Eris' help – and look on as he approached the two of us inside his afloat safe zone with his intention being to humiliate me in front of his fanbase. He did exactly that because the next I knew I was dangling a hundred feet above the ground, suitcase still in hand. It would have been a lot more frightening if I hadn't caught sight of Eris' paling face considering I was in the middle of some sort of death match, but it was a sight to behold nonetheless. 

Just when I thought that it couldn't get any worse for me, the inner _inner_ circle unlocked its doors and out came one Hyperion, one filthy Pandoran, and... "Duuuude! Twice in one day!" because seeing Zer0 more than once had to be some omen. My chest grew as I took in one huge breath and continued to embarrass myself with, "Eris, Eris! Eris! Look!" If Bossanova wasn't already working his magic by making everyone rejoice at my misfortune, I sure as hell was by my open love for this arguably otherworldly assassin.

"That's great and all, Noah, but..." She replied, swinging her legs over to make her way inside. "We got bigger problems here!"

My eyes traveled to the trio below me, then to the epitome of immaturity above, hands reaching down to grab what was rightfully mine. With my jacket collar being the only saving grace, my only choices were to slap his hand away for the remainder of my time as a living human being or something that was completely reckless and the worst idea ever came up with. However, the latter had to be done; no one was to be opening that suitcase but me and I would make sure of it.

"Eris!" Once her baby blues aligned with mine, I threw my arm back, my grip so tight on the handle because I couldn't even trust myself with so much money. "Catch!"

With a flick of the wrist, the suitcase was a hundred feet in the air, ready to be anyone's for the taking. Bandits, psychos, were rising from their seats with their arms up, palms tightening into a fist then back open in an attempt to oppress their hunger of spiting the rich. Eris became a player the moment she realized that suitcase wouldn't make it into her arms. As for me, I was all too aware of the fact that I had front seat tickets... as soon as the hook keeping me alive _hooked_ the slightest bit forward to loosen the hold on my collar.

It wasn't as petrifying as I thought it would be, plummeting to your death – it was a bit surreal but easy to accept like a computer crashing right after you surfed the Internet for porn. It was heartbreaking nonetheless; there were so much I wish I had done... my life felt so empty, so mundane. My idea of fun was was taking God's place, giving out punishments for those who deserved it and yet, as entertaining as it was, that's all I did. My life was an endless cycle of sacrificing my sanity for Eris, for my clients, yet there was no sign that the life I lived was worth it.

I thought I died and went to heaven when a cool hand slipped underneath my arms, the other under my knees, cradling me against them. As fast as lightning, I was safe in the arms of someone I'd kneel in front of to get them to notice me except the moment was so wrong and turbulent I could hardly look up at him without becoming overwhelmed. There was no other place I'd rather be in: in the arms of my idol, except my hands were tightening into fists, toes curling up against the inside of my boots.

"Hello, little one/ I have come to rescue you/ What is your damage?" His tone was flat but the emotion he emitted said otherwise: _:D_

"I'd like to be put down!" I wasn't worthy of speaking back to him, but here I was. "And... And I'm not little, s-so..." Great, I couldn't even form a sentence without tripping up over my words.

  _> _< _Great, now I had gone and upset him, a God among Vault Hunters. From that alone, it was a strong competitor for being one of the worst moments in my life. However, his feet effortlessly touching the ground would be the start of a chain of events that ended up to be the worst yet best time of my life. So he set me down, legs dejectedly sliding off his form before he scurried off to steal my Bossanova kill.

Which led me to that specific minute in time, my downfall flashing before my very eyes as I watched Bossanova's makeshift boombox on its descend to rid of me once and for all. For the fourth time that day there were too many close calls that I wouldn't be surprised if this was my last. For someone who was so content with her life, my feet stood planted on the ground as if it was ready to end all of the pain and exhaustion it endured. And all I could do was watch and let it happen. 

Without warning, hands pushed against my back, my own coated with sand, dirt, and the like from being the only body part to break my fall. Beside me landed the man who just couldn't let me rest, his face and clothes coated with the insides of some locked up monster – his chest heaving as if he'd done a great deal. Dumbfounded as I was at the idea of a Hyperion actually caring about others, my eyes squinted at him as if he had the audacity to, my lips tugged into a frown. He returned the favor, although it was hard to take him seriously because he was no one relevant enough to acknowledge. In just one second I realized I never hated a Hyperion so much... and yet I couldn't understand him all the same.

But he wasn't finished. "What, no thank you?" 

I always had to have the last laugh. "To you? I'd rather puke."

The events behind us turned out no better; Zer0 had managed to corner his nemesis, although you could hardly call Bossanova that because he was so weak and pathetic compared to Zer0, caging him between his trusty blade and hand. What he said next was a full sentence, his displeasure as clear as the hatred for the Hyperion next to me: "Where is it?" As to the 'it' he was referring to, who knew; all that matters was that he ended the minor inconvenience I've been chasing from for years by charging his blade right into his...  _woofer._ That was the only good thing to come out of this whole mess.

What happened after that was officially the worst moment of my life. Because I chose to waste my time on the end of a dispensable arc, the arena began to shake and stir as if the world wanted to end before I could do any more damage to myself. Unfortunately, Pandora wasn't so kind, and as I propped myself on top of my palms, my eyes could not tear away from the green bills raining down before my eyes. My body began to quiver, hands grasping at the edges of what fell before me as if it would help.

It wouldn't end either, the loss wouldn't stop tantalizing me, _teasing_ me, and the money kept on with its relentless assault by landing around my broken form because the world was against me. Pressing my wrists against my eyes, a low but heartbroken sob built up in my throat and the vibration in my pocket wasn't helping that either. Caught down on my knees, I was shown no mercy as I felt the tablet hum against my side over and over and my hands couldn't stop shivering, begging because... because...

Because I didn't want to die feeling this broken.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much! I edited Chapters 1 and 2 so it would look... well.. nicer! I hope you guys like Eris and Noah, and enjoyed this chapter of One Tall Tale! See ya next time :D


	4. Devil on Your Shoulder

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Ah, well, see you all in hell."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, I literally worked on this day and night and I am very proud of this chapter! I do hope you guys like the references, the characters, and the interactions. And I do hope you enjoy Noah's rapid descent into :) mental instability :)

Okay... this is officially the worst day ever."

Yeah, no shit Rhys.

The crowd began to disperse until there was nothing left but a wreckage of broken hearts and despair, all in the form of six people who sacrificed all they had and didn't even get a dime out of it. What was an opportunity for the lucky ones to rise above those who had the privilege of making it, beyond those who scavenged off of bodies just to make a quick buck, fell between our eyes and contributed to nothing more than a mess people stepped on, treated like _garbage_. That was what our lives had been reduced to, the pathetic one of a Pandoran native.

That was no life I wanted to live. At least the chance of sitting on top of a throne made of solid gold was a big fat zero. That way your hopes were never up; you sat comfortably in a life where you accepted that all the money you would ever have went towards guns and ammunition because you were a member of Crimson Lance or you weren't. I heard it all the time: "At least you're not on Promethea!" but those who hadn't stepped foot on that planet had no idea how comforting it was to live there compared to Pandora.

Eris making her way towards my small figure amidst the aftermath, a sullen expression on top of her petite features, only secured the notion that I was inconsolable. "Eris," I said, my body trembling, voice quavering, "Eris, it's _over_."

"No, no, it's not." Her warm yet rough hands cupped my cheeks, her face close to mine. "Hey? Hello? Look at me." Two smacks to the face and I couldn't tear my eyes off of her. "It's not over. We can do this and we'll do it—"

" _Together_ , Eris, as if you haven't told me the last two hundred times..."

Her arms laid on top of one another as they were wrapped around my shoulders, hands threading into my hair as she tugged softly in an attempt to comfort me. Despite it all, I could not shed a tear – my body shook, lips trembling uncontrollably, but my eyes didn't follow. Perhaps it was because it hadn't hit them yet, the moment they would no longer function approaching sooner than desired, but it was agonizing knowing you couldn't afford for your body to give out when the rest of you kept fighting on.

We remained that way, basking in each other's warmth until... "Hate to ruin your little moment, but we got work to do... and I don't like working with people I don't know."

A tall woman with a bit of snark and sass to her posture ruined the moment, a frown on her lips. Tucking her arms underneath the other, her fingers tapped at her elbow, her nails chipped in every way possible, caked with dirt, because living on this planet didn't allow healthy and presentable nails. Maybe the same could have been said for her outfit since her red blouse was snug against her figure despite it being a hundred degrees outside – beyond comprehension, but who was I to judge when everyone dressed their own way on Pandora?

Rolling my eyes at her words, I responded with, "Who said we were working with each other?"

Her cherry coated lips rose into a smirk, her feet leaning more towards her right. "Well, you screwed over our deal, our little tag team screwed over theirs... and it goes on. It's only fair."

"... Noah," I replied, my arms growing more tight around Eris by the second. "This is Eris." Before the woman could open her mouth, I interrupted her with a curt, "And before you say anything, our names aren't switched around like your pal over there says."

Said pal – "Who, him? No no, you got that all wrong. I don't make friends, especially with that kind." – made his way towards the three of us, a scowl upon his lips. His mechanical arm, practically oozing Hyperion made, was crossed over his pinstriped arm and... why was his tie tucked into his pants? Did he not know fashion despite being one, if not the most pretentious and obnoxious being on this planet? If that wasn't bad enough, he proudly displayed his vanity for all to see: a big old 'Hyperion' slapped on his vest.

"No luck, I'm guessing?" Eris inquired, her hand colliding with my right shoulder before returning to her side. "Or are you just being useless as always?" I counted on the harsh words from my friend, but not to this extent.

"Eris... she's got a point." Although I had to admit, watching the company man clench his fists at her comment was a great sight. "If we're gonna be working with each other, we have to be nice to 'em. Unfortunately for us, that means the Hyperion too."

"Um... I have a name, you know." His right hand reached up to scratch at his neck. "It's... It's Rh—"

His patience was slowly dwindling with the woman beside me and she enjoyed every minute of it. "Hyperion? Loser? Oh, okay." Yet the laughs were gone in a blink, and she wasn't in the mood for games. "So, I'm obviously the third wheel here. What do we do now?"

"Well, what do you think, genius?" A voice passed by us, the source with her hands on her hips as her green eyes found our own for a brief second, then traveling to her sisters, and then towards the sinful and judgmental eyes of the men of our party. Pulling on the headband that kept her brown locks back, she began to fiddle with the buttons of her pockets – whether it was strapped to her solid green sleeve or her leggings, she was prepared – only to sigh dejectedly upon finding nothing of use. "We start looking for whatever we can. No use waiting." Pausing from her effort, she ended the conversation with: "Sasha, by the way."

"Fiona. Older sister." The taller woman of the two added, almost proudly, bending down to inspect a piece of metal buried in the sand. "What's your relationship?"

"We're best friends," I responded, although the words 'best friends' were bitter on my tongue. "For...?"

"Fifteen years, Noah. Going on sixteen."

"Yeah... a long time."

Just like that, we reverted back to who we were just hours ago: lone wolves who had help from no one else but their counterpart. We had all gone our separate ways, finding ways to comfort our lack of wealth – what was snatched from the ground did little to help, however – and wandered inside the inner circle as if it was yesterday and we didn't damn ourselves to oblivion over this terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day. It was inevitable that we would so easily fall back into our ways, but it was truly fate that squished us together as if something good would come out of it.

"Hey," Eris called despite me being a mere inch from her, her hands squeezing my shoulders. "Did ya' notice you're almost the same height as that guy over there?" Then she snickered, her hand patting at my back a few times before resuming her search.

If fate paired us together, it didn't do a very good job. "Shut it, Eris. At least I'm not taller than your husband."

Silence is what followed, so I kept on with my own search, grabbing handfuls of sand inside my palm in hopes that a gem will fall into my grasp. They were warm under my fingertips, burning through my flesh as the sun focused on my hand as if it was some magnifying glass. Despite minutes of this, there was no luck on my side, and none on anyone else's, judging by the shared sighs that conveyed an emotion along the lines of "I would rather be anywhere else but here right now."

"It— It's over. I mean, what do we even do now?" Vaughn dragged his hands down his face, clearly shaken up. "No vault key, no money, there's nothing here..."

Thanks for the words of encouragement, I guess. "Dude, no offense, but you're kinda killing any hope I had of getting out of this alive," I piped up, my body leaning against what was left of Bossanova's legacy, with Rhys standing inside for whatever reason.

And he almost questioned it, the words that escaped from my own accord, if not for the jumble of rusty yellow metal crashing down before our eyes with a boom. We watched, dumbfounded, as it stretched out its arms and legs and turned its waist towards Rhys, who I assumed was the owner. I allowed a gasp to form, a gape forming on my lips at the sight of a _Loader_ before it said: "You suck." in the most apathetic voice I've ever heard.

" _Why_ is it not attacking us?" Eris' hand was faster wrapped around the hilt of her blade than she was at the aspect of marrying her husband, yet the only reaction out of me were the stars in my eyes; I'd never seen a Loader before, only in newspapers a year ago, a time where Vault Hunters ran rampant at the expense of Handsome Jack.  Quite the contrary for this Loader, who was loyal to one owner – and judging by the 'You suck,' they had quite the relationship – this one was completely friendly and passive.

Except that wasn't important because the sheer force of Loader's slam to the ground was enough to widen the hole that kept Bossanova's safe heaven snug, intact, and on the ground, a low rumble following only seconds after before it fell through with an intention to bring Rhys along with it. With a yelp, he fell below ground, right through my grasp – well, if you called tripping over my ass and _watching_ as he faced the cold stare of death for what looked like the third time that day a contribution.

I could have latched on to his wrists before he was so far beyond reach; I stood against that huge clunk of metal, which meant I was the closest to him. Except I decided that day that his life wasn't worth mine, that I would preserve the rest of my days over whatever pedestal he stood on. Pandora was well off with one less Hyperion, and yet I made that choice on my own. I decided on the fate of another person without putting in any effort, and yet that was the same as acting upon it. How odd, that the notion that one action not taken could inflict so much pain.

The five of us, or six if you counted Loader, scurried to the edge of the chasm – Fiona, Sasha, and Eris weren't in much of a hurry, however – our eyes wide as Rhys began his fast descent into an indefinite slumber. He was lying there, his cheek squished against the cool metal beneath him, with his hand inert without a mind to instruct it. Although, you couldn't tell if he suffered any injuries because the skag those psycho's locked up from before practically painted him red with his blood and his intestines.

Sparing a glance at his friend, Vaughn, my heartstrings began to tug a little. His eyes were wider than the whole from which his friend fell into, his firm body tense with the sight. Yet, no matter how many times I told myself that it was an injury or death – who cares – long overdue, a frown formed at the corner of my lips at the notion that Vaughn was about to lose a friend. Apparently his sorrow didn't have the same effect on the rest of us as it did on me because the next best idea was to nod simply their respects and go on their merry way without him.

"Rhys! If you're..." Beads of sweat trickled down his forehead, and he paused to wipe them away. "If you're dead, say something!"

"Oops," was all that Loader said.

I shook my head, reaching my hand for the rusty orange poles that will clearly never be in my grasp unless I took that leap of faith down there. Throwing a brief glimpse over my shoulder at my friend, I continued my trek downstairs upon finding that her eyes were on the two sisters and their hushed whispers. My hands grabbed at clusters of crystals that burned under the shining sun, traveling further back until my short legs began to weigh the rest of my body down. As Vaughn crawled over to me, his frame enough to widen my pupils at the newfound and welcoming shade, he sent a nervous but thankful grin my way.

"Hey, you. Look behind you and see if she's looking, yeah?" I demanded. "Don't want her whining about me and the dumb shit I do."

He heeded my order, his arm resting on his right knee as he looked over his shoulder, then back at me. "The coast is clear... Hey, Eris?"

"Name's Noah, dude."

"Oh... uh, okay. Just wanted to say thanks before you go down there. I'm sure he'll be fine..." Except I didn't pay any mind to his remarks, my eyes anywhere but him. "I owe you one!"

"Listen, you don't owe me shit." Because it wasn't like I was doing this for him.

That was the end of our conversation, and I lost my grasp on the edge of the pit before landing near the jagged, sharp ends of the metal poles, ones that once pushed people from place to place, or served a purpose inside the Atlas factory. By now the rest of them returned to their spots beside Rhys' corporate friend, furrowing their eyebrows and frowning as if expecting more. As they sported that familiar stance of disapproval and exasperation, I jumped further down, next to Rhys' limp... corpse? 

"Hey, you. You dead yet?" Kneeling down alongside him, I leaned in to press my two fingers to his neck. "Huh. Looks like he's breathing." Then, under my breath, "That's kind of... disappointing..."

"Is he breathing?" Eris inquired, although I doubt his heart still beating mattered much to her.

"Sadly."

Much to my chagrin, the man before me let out a long groan, as if just waking up from a nap. With no hurry, his head rose from the floor, his ECHO eye burning brighter at the sight of a twenty seven year old that cursed his next close call only seconds prior. With an immature sense of upholding his renown, he began to hoist himself to his feet while I followed his efforts through simply watching, and said, "I'm fine, I'm fine. Totally meant to do that." 

And with that same capacity of a child, he strode past me, leaving me to climb to my feet on my own. "Yeah, and unlike you, I meant it when I implied I wanted you dead."

Sasha looked down at us with a smirk upon her lips. "Good, cause it doesn't look like there's a safe way down, so..." Well, at least someone was enjoying this. "Figure a way out of there, you two."

Imagine this: a group where everyone was so mildly condescending despite it all, one that was so diverse regarding their lives... only to have that one trait of putting their life before anyone else's. Ideally, that would allow us a chance to bond, to poke fun at one another because no one will stop them from getting into danger. However, the more I caught the attention of these four opportunists, it didn't take me long to fear being alone with one of them. No doubt were they ready to sacrifice a life for their own, but I hoped soon enough they would be aware that _two could play at this game._

"Ah, well." I nodded at the seemingly fearless woman, her golden brown skin contrasting from my pale complexion. "You're useless."

"What's down there?" A good question that I didn't know the answer to, my eyes travelled to the scrapped prototypes, the debris from Rhys' fall, and the remnants of one company bought with simple pocket change. Despite being underground, the shelter was overrun with old Atlas technology – quite surprising, considering bandits and psychos were right upstairs killing each other, then eating their faces. Layers of dust piled on top of them, the rust rubbing off of our fingertips, and somehow they held this place under our noses this whole time. Who knew what was down here?

"Holy shit. It's like I'm in Promethea all over again," I murmured, shards of glass clacking from under me as I approached Rhys. "You know... if Handsome Jack wasn't a thing."

This seemed to pique his interest, and he looked back at my small stature. "You're from Promethea?"

Humming my response, my head peeked from his shoulder to examine the broken, left over pieces of Atlas machinery. "Don't see why it matters, but... Eris and I lived there for quite a while."

"And it's, uh... It's bad there, I hear?"

I clicked my tongue at him, my stormy eyes leaving his. "Yeah, and it's not 'cause of you guys, surprisingly." Rhys must have heard it plenty of times from the Pandoran ones of our team, that Hyperion under Handsome Jack's rule destroyed lives, killed so many... what was one more to him? "You really... _don't_ know what you did to them down here. I mean, don't get me wrong, I don't really care—"

"I think I have an idea."

"Nah, you don't," I said, shaking my head, "You won't even last down here, once they realize who you are."

Rhys was silent, not caring to acknowledge whatever I had to say next; for one moment, it was as if I completely cracked that strong and comical demeanor. A glower was stuck on his lips, both of his eyes lingering on the table before him. "You come to Pandora, now you get to live like we do," Fiona said earlier, except it was an idea that hadn't registered yet. He was one of few Hyperion workers to visit Pandora on his own accord, but he was still so blind to all of the chaos, the uncertainty, and _why_ it ended up this way.

With a low thump, Eris had wedged her way into our conversation – if those bars weren't her helping hand I doubted she'd even come down – both physically and verbally. She grabbed the lapel of my jacket in her fist, yanking me closer to her, the ring on her finger glinting with the orange lights inside the Atlas hideout. Surely, Rhys must have been aware of the way Eris narrowed her eyes at his Hyperion vest, never leaving until the rest of our group of six announced their presence by leaping down one by one. Perhaps his lack of response was _because_ he knew there was no reaching us, that his side of the story would never be heard.

"Heyyy, do me a favor." Once the strawberry blonde thought her piece, she _had_ to say it, her lips close to my ear. "Stay away from that guy, Noah. I don't trust them as far as I can throw 'em." Then, as an afterthought, "Once we find what we're looking for, we're _gone_."

There was no refusing her; ten minutes was too long when you were in the presence of a circle of ambitious yet power hungry people. What I found to be true on Pandora was that whoever worked to make it to the top did it alone, or with someone they trusted. Then, because of greed and an insatiable need to take it all, all of the gold and cut ropes that held your relationships together are now in your hands – sound familiar? If not, the tale of Handsome Jack is a good one to read up on.

"Gone, right."

Of course that seemed plausible when, with a press of a button, Sasha was more thrilled than I'd ever seen her. In her hands was an old Atlas weapon, the Atlas Silver she called it, except I wouldn't have known what type it was if she hadn't blatantly said it in her own personal high; I understood excitement over an old relic, but an old Atlas SMG? You could find one less expensive at the marketplace, and it would still do the same job. As odd as it was, it wasn't my place to judge – wasting time on her likes, her dislikes, or her hobbies would be as if I wanted to befriend her.

Which... I'd rather not.

To no one's surprise, Rhys wasn't impressed because better weapons were made back at the base even if limbs were sacrificed for it. "Vintage... I guess."

"Yeah. So adorable."

Next up on the list of surprises was Vaughn, the edge of his fair fingers still on the button symmetric to the one Sasha had pressed, a watch – whatever it was, anything that Atlas produced that wasn't for the mass genocide of certain cliques was useless – rising from the safe it was kept in. He was just as happy with the results – "A retro Atlasia! Holy shit!" – and slid over to his tall coworker, telling of how he thought it was only a rumor, that it could tell time, even...

"Hey, Noah," Fiona spoke, her fists on her hips, "You find anything yet?"

Eris swooped in, throwing her arm around my shoulders. From the looks of it, Fiona must have thought I was the easier one to talk to. "No, _we_ didn't. Not like we'd say anything if we did, right Noah?"

I sighed, shoulders rolling forward. "Right."

Fiona's eyes narrowed at the woman beside me. "But I don't recall asking you. If I'm not mistaken... think I was talking to _your friend_ over there."

My eyes rolled to the back of my head, a low huff leaving my nostrils, and I loosened Eris' grasp on me before promptly scooting away from whatever argument was about to start. I didn't like them as much as the next person but I at least knew to not push their buttons; if we were to be together for God knows how long, maybe it was better to not act as if we didn't want to be there. Vaughn didn't want to end up here, stranded on Pandora from a ruined deal, but you didn't hear _him_ whine about it.

As Eris and Fiona's agitation bounced off the walls, my own lessened at the wall before me – namely, the one with the big orange button that screeched ' _PRESS ME.'_ The money man and the kid sister were to their own devices, sharing an occasional groan because Fiona and Eris wouldn't put their differences aside for just one minute. Rhys, the company man, was in the middle of observing the women, and not stopping it like a _middle man_ should. That left me, eyes on what could be our way around this situation.

Little did I know, a shitstorm was heading our way. "Hey!" I drawled, hoping to catch their attention, but they were too in love with one-upping each other to notice. "Um... hello?"

"Y'know what, I've known you for what? Ten minutes? Already you're pissing—"

"... I'm gonna press it."

With that statement alone, the Atlas shelter was silent, and all it took was a click of the tongue before my arm met Fiona's. With my eyebrows raised, my blue irises flicked up towards hers then to the cut on her right cheek, watching as her hands swept her bands aside through her prized hat. In what I saw as an attempt to forget Eris and her low tolerance for people, she licked a stripe up her thumb and began to smooth out her eyebrows, through the scar on her right's. Yet all that mattered to me despite what I learned about her in such a short amount of time was that, even on my tippy toes, I only reached her shoulders.

If that wasn't bad enough, Rhys' grazed my right shoulder, seemingly interested in what was in front of us. It was a personal struggle to meet his gaze, since his height versus my 5'4 didn't bode well for me; he towered over my insignificant, small being, my head only reaching his chest. His arms were on top of the other, his line of vision on the debris on the floor as if pondering his next course of action. The three of us were still, skin bright with whatever was to come, except no one wanted to do anything about it.

Rhys was the first to speak. "So... who wants to do the honors?"

"It's the last one... it's only right for the three of us to reveal it... that's the best part," Fiona added, "So, what do you say? Ten mill right under our noses..."

My feet were planted between the two, their body heat more evident than whatever was active behind these walls. Our journey could have ended right then and there, ten million bucks popping up before our eyes, and the six of us – seven, if the Loader wasn't easily forgettable – would walk our three different roads as if we had never met. However ideal that was, that happening would be too easy, too simple. Groups of two from completely different backgrounds, it was a match made in hell.

Good thing that was where I was headed. "Ten million dollars, you say? Fuck it. I'm in."

A smile formed on Rhys' lips. "Yeah, I was kinda hoping you'd say that."

Somehow the three of us were in unison, our hands edging closer to the opportunity of a lifetime. The sun was only inches away from our hands, burning our fingertips, a trace of the animated Atlas company surrounding us before Hyperion burned it all to the ground. Speaking of Hyperion, one of their workers was creeping towards this button, his hand only a centimeter away before...

"Wait, what are you doing?"

Rhys' head whipped to Fiona's, reciprocating the frown on top of her lips. "... What does it look like I'm doing?"

"You're getting a _bit_ too close there, buddy."

I blinked at the two of them, my lips pressed together in a thin line. "... Seriously?"

"I-I _was_ gonna wait for you, you know!" Rhys.

"No, you weren't!" Fiona.

And just like that, the two were bickering as if they were some married couple in need of therapy, each voice a bit higher than the last.  Yet the twenty-seven year old in the middle sat in an uncomfortable, irritated silence, hands at her waist rather than where it should be. Again, Sasha and Vaughn didn't pay any mind to us, drooling all over their new gadgets. Sure, an argument such as this one would have been amusing, but not when the embodiment of impatience was behind me, awaiting the moment I returned to her side, and definitely not when the world was just beyond my fingertips.

I shook my head, and pressed the heel of my palm against it, a low buzz following after. "Don't exactly have all day, you know."

Whether or not this would all lead to naught was questionable, even when our eyes went after the amber trail that flickered along the cracks in the floor, down to the tile that held perhaps one of the last secrets Atlas kept in hopes that Hyperion would never find it and take it from them. One look at the man next to me and I knew that, even if our discovery wasn't for naught, their attempt was. Did it even matter in the grand scheme of things? Whatever would come from this was sure to be valuable, and I could not wait to get my hands on it.

With a whirr and a squeal as if someone has awoken from a long slumber, a machine rose from under the Atlas logo, stretching higher than Rhys ever could. Sparing a look at one another, our faces ranging from bewildered and in disbelief, we began our cautious step forward. We were stupefied at the valuable fragments that enticed us closer, the gray pieces hovering inside the marigold light that kept them close, but apart.

"Reset. Identification required."

Pushing Rhys and Fiona aside, the orange glow purified my skin, almost blinding my vision because of its sheer extravagance. "Good thing you fell down here, stupid."

"Yeah..." Rhys nodded, seemingly agreeing, until, "Wait, what?"

"Yeah, but here's the problem." The brunette woman shuffled her gaze to Rhys, then to me. "Only two of 'em, which means..."

... Oh. "Oh... Well, I guess I'll have to kill you then." Sucked that it had to end so quickly because Atlas hadn't counted on a third to take a piece for their own, but... what could you do? If snatching a fragment of my own somehow ensured a life with the one I cared for the most, then I would stop at nothing to get it done. It was a dream so ideal yet so close within my grasp that any casualties or deaths wouldn't matter in the long run; after  all... the end justified the means.

I was willing to, until my name fell from Eris' lips as if a mother was speaking to her child after they had done something wrong. Then, over Fiona's shoulder, I watched as her digit curled once – only once, if I may add, since twice meant she had to drag you over to her if you weren't going to cooperate – towards her nose. I couldn't refuse her demand; she had every reason to stop me and watch my actions because she had done just that for so long. If I was on the brink of acting stupid, Eris was right behind me to yank me back to intelligence whether I liked it or not.

So I took the role, the child who had done the unthinkable, and slowly approached her form. "... What did I do now?"

"You're about to do something stupid."

Except I've been doing something stupid my whole life. "Yeah, Eris, but this is something huge! Maybe I could give this up instead of the Vault Key. And I can, y'know, actually not die!"

Her finger was raised to her lips, her next words in a whisper. "But we can find... other places. We can do one last job, scrape up enough to head back to Promethea. We'll hide there until it blows over."

It was a beautiful lie, a life with Eris even if she never returned what I felt for her. Yet, choosing that would be cruel to her; I was the worst type of person, but I could never sacrifice what Eris had here. There was an ache in my chest whenever she was with me; that smile she shared whenever she spoke to me back in her apartment was a smile I never deserved. However, I was one of the lucky ones as she graced my being with her precision, her perfection. Eris was kind, perhaps too kind, for someone like me.

"Eris... Eris, I can't do that to you." I shook my head, intertwining her hands with mine. "You've got a husband, a kid who I'm...  _ninety percent sure is the devil_ , but that's not the point!" I sighed, and reluctantly loosened my hold on her hands, my own lingering until we were completely apart. "Yeah. You have a life here. You don't need me. Besides, I promise you to the ends of Pandora that if I royally fuck up like I do all the time, I'll pick myself up and I'll come crying back to you if you want me to."

Eris was so weak at times like these; every time tears escaped her, another piece of my heart fell and shattered. "You are a huge fuck up, though..."

The two of us shared a snicker despite what went on behind us. "Yeah, I figured—"

"No, I mean really, all you do is just screw up. You don't even know how to use a gun..."

Ouch. "... Thanks, Eris."

Before I resumed my promise to assassinate Rhys for the artifact, my thumbs wiped Eris' tears from her cheeks, and I grinned at her despite it all. There was a slim chance I was getting out of this alive, but to have to see her face when she realized it... I was never that brave. Sure I looked forward to every option given, but the more I breathed in the bitter, rusty Pandora air, the more I wanted to crawl in a hole and die on my own terms.

That notion was even more possible when I followed the gazes to the floor, the artifacts intact but drawn together. On the contrary, the now whole artifact – singular, now – was inanimate as if one touch sucked the life out of it and ruined whatever destiny Atlas laid out for it. What was once a faint glow was flickering in and out as if the batteries were taken out. The six of us crowded around it, foolishly thinking that this couldn't be the end when the book had closed on us long ago.

I handled this the most mature way possible. "Well, you broke it. You just up and fucking broke it."

"W-What? I didn't do anything, Fiona and I just picked it up and it—"

I couldn't say the same for my dear, blonde friend. "Broke? Because you couldn't keep your grubby little hands off it for once?"

Lowering myself to my knees, I planted my bottom on my calves, teeth pulling at some cuticles along my fingers. Advising against rubbing my hands all over it, Rhys' words were not only lost in translation but ignored in favor of my blind curiosity. But when my fingers so happened to graze the edge of the Atlas artifact, a high but strong shock traveled to my hand, up my arm, stopping just short of my heart. Reeling backwards onto my ass, it was as if I was numb on the left side of my body, static and an ethereal sense of nullity passing through me. That would have been intolerable if it weren't for the color flushing back into the relic, rising above our heads as if it... Holy shit.

"Holy shit." Thanks, Eris, could always count on you to voice my thoughts.

Because above all of us grew an extravagant sphere, transparent with the darkest of hues yet still pleasing to the eye. Trails circled the globe, each jumping from one place – along various patches of land – to the other on the map. This guide was leading us somewhere people would lead _thousands_ into to search for, and it was right before our eyes like we somehow deserved this. Somehow, this rag tag team of misfits, including Eris and I, had stumbled on a map to a _fucking vault._

So, Satan could kiss my ass for another day because I apparently lucked out. Sweet.

Perhaps I was too quick to judge, too swift to curse the man above the stars and taunt the man below the ground. Before I could bless the floors I actually walked on, Rhys leapt a few feet in the air with a jolt, sparing a baffled yet mortified glance over his shoulder at absolutely nothing... and that, my friends, was the moment that began my downward spiral into a wreckage of love, loss, and identify crisis'... and apparently jokes, if we were lucky enough.

Ah, well, see you all in hell.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please give kudos and/or a review if you can! Or you can cry over how Noah's completely fucked whichever is fine with me lmao


	5. Shenanigans

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Shenanigans. Noah hates this word.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes I'm still continuing this story...... No I have not stopped loving this game.

The Devil on Rhys' shoulder... well, that was one way to put it. However, whatever glance he threw over his shoulder, before he left his ticket to happiness to stare at  _nothing,_ was not directed at the embodiment of anarchy and loathing. You could argue that whoever caused such a fright in the Hyperion hacker –  _whatever_  the guy was – lived up to the title. Some would tell you that behind me was the Devil, throwing up two of his fingers behind my head as if mocking me.

"Stop doing that!" was what he demanded of the unknown, and I followed his unease to at least understand his words, but I was unable to. An attempt nonetheless, there was truly a lack of existence behind us, as far as the eye could see. But Rhys could not let it go like he should have; he abandoned the map and the rest of our inquiries – "is this guy, like, okay?" – for the temptation of finding out, for lack of better words, what the fuck just happened.

"Rhys, buddy," Perhaps that wasn't the best time to further establish their friendship with the word 'bro'. "You, uh... You alright there?"

"Stop doing  _what_?" Something about it all bothered me. "I'm not doing any—"

Both Rhys and Eris cut in with a swift "N-Not you!" and a contrasting "Oh, come on!" that left me confused and exasperated. Not just them, but voices overlapped as if we had all the time in the world with Atlas technology mere centimeters from our grasp. Vaughn must have thought so, since his solution to his best friends' odd behavior was that he was cursed with a headache, a glitch in his wiring. Except he began to wander off, and convincing the four women in front of him that Rhys was suffering from something so simple as a headache... well, at least there was one thing I shared with Sasha and Fiona. "He's going up," Sasha commented, arms crossed over the other, her attention at the steps the Hyperion practically jumped on. Once he was out of sight, Sasha decided she was free to speak. "Vaughn. What the hell?"

"Ah, it's nothing!" His voice was shaken, but you couldn't figure if it was due to worry for his friend or fear that everyone surrounding him was out for blood. "He's just, uh, going upstairs... 'cause he needs some air, y'know, 'cause it's higher..." 

Fiona nodded slowly, although I was sure it was because our attention dwelled on Rhys for far too long. "Alrighty then."

The Hyperion accountant tittered – a laugh you know will stick with him until he dies, his last resort in coping with the realization that he has absolutely no idea what is going on – and tilted his neck up at the treasure before us. I had done the same, my ears perking up at his attempt to divert the rest of us from  whatever was transpiring above us; sure, it worked, but that didn't stop everyone from shifting uncomfortably at the sound of Rhys talking to himself. However, our con women were intelligent enough to lay it to rest. Eris, for some reason, took a few steps forward, an unreadable expression upon her face. 

Was it odd, to watch someone act only the slightest bit different and wonder if you ever knew them, truly? In an act that was both foreign and familiar, the woman turned to scowl at the hand wrapped her wrist, then sequentially pulled me along as if she was the one in control. Her gaze never left what belonged up those stairs, an uncertainty in her eyes that was certainly out of character for her. The thing about Eris was that even when she wasn't sure of something, no one would know other than her; she would figure it out herself.

"We need to go, now," she began, her nails searching for the veins in my wrist. "I don't like this."

"You don't like anything," I recalled, "so your opinion isn't really credible right now."

"Noah." My name fell from her lips as if she had been reprimanding a child. "Be serious, for once."

Serious? Impossible. "Fine. What's bothering you then?"

Except the question received no answer, the sad truth was that she refused to humor my inquiry. Nothing left her body other than my name, a quiver soon to be a mess, and all I wanted in that moment was to hold her until she fell into me. However, she wouldn't let herself lose her footing, not when someone was out there, judging her. All attempts that were made in order to coax an answer out of her was futile. The two of us felt alone in a world where we were thought to have each other; no matter how many times I would tell her that I'd never leave, she kept to herself as if I eventually would.

I whispered out her name, so low that I could hardly believe I even said it. I tried, yet it was obvious that she had nothing to say. I tried, but she wasn't reciprocating, and attempts can only go so far when the other party isn't willing to listen, to compromise. This put the two of us at the beginning, a woman running off to ruin herself in the name of adventure, and the other left behind to follow what little footsteps the daredevil put behind her. Why, that woman began to wonder, why wouldn't she give up? The thought that our friendship would meet its bitter end, not now but soon enough, was beautiful yet nearly not enough to keep me from picking up the pieces, over and over.

A moment, that's all it would take to realize how useless it was to fight for my existence. Despite the small window given to her, she never took advantage of the possibilities it possessed: a life with her beloved family, a golden age found nowhere else than inside the walls of Opportunity. All she would have to do was leave me to die; she wouldn't be the first, but there was nothing more lovely than her being the last. I pleaded with the monster, the woman who brought everyone down with her, to push her away.

However, like the fool I was, the only comfort I had was when she was close to me. "Hey, short stuff. You're missing all the fun." Fiona,  _come on._

Yet, the uncertainty in my eyes only clashed with the indecisiveness in Eris', and no one could change that. "Nah... all the fun's right here." 

It was odd, that how much I loved her was somehow equal to how much I had grown to absolutely hate her. The moments with her were exhilarating, a breath of fresh air to the dry, brittle intakes of breath on Pandora. At the same time, I'd end up pushing her away, huffing in anger at how insufferable she was. I was a child, a ten year old fighting to be the favorite in a life reserved for her newborn, and it was the most pathetic battle I ever endured. I began to lash at her because of it, because I couldn't seep my way into her life yet she somehow always crawled into my business as if it was hers.

Indeed she did, but her eyes rolled to the back of her head as if she hadn't. "You are a piece of  _work_ , you know that?" 

"Oh, now she has something to say," I barked.  

"Yeah, I do." She nodded, lips curled as if contemplating to move forward or be the sensible one of the both of us. "You're the one who doesn't give a fuck about others. You know what's fun? You. You and your fuckin'  _lunacy_." 

Stalking towards her, I cackled at it all: her audacity, her stupidity. "Sorry, guess that lunacy went over your head for ten years, like most things." 

"Call me stupid. One. More. Time." 

Eris somehow thought I wouldn't, not in my apparent outrage, so I thought to prove her wrong with my next set of words – colorful as they may be. Somehow our conflict was to be amplified by the four still in the room because Rhys was still in the middle of his conversation with himself and Fiona, Sasha, and Vaughn couldn't – well, God only knew what they were doing at this point. Surely, the Loader upstairs would soon inquire of our actions because it wasn't as if anyone else knew what they were doing. 

What happened afterwards mirrored a chain reaction; this became a common occurrence with the gang, when one of us annoyed the others,  _everyone_ followed their example. Rhys screamed because he scared himself, a sentence that was absolutely nonsense to me at the time but there was no better way to say it. Eris and I shared narrowed eyes at his back, the silent warning conveyed clearly by our tightly wound fists. However, the last straw was the line of blood sketched along my left cheek. It was nothing I wasn't used to seeing, but being aware of it when I was in a spontaneous partnership was unsettling to say the least. 

Loosening up my fists, my palm was still raised as if I was prepared to hit someone – I was, but that was always factual. "What  _the hell_  is going on over there?" 

Before I knew it, seconds prior to the unlikely chance I would react in time, an item the size of camera lens came hurling my way. A step to my left absolved me from embarrassment, deciding within moments that my fists were a little too excited to be handling such fragile objects soon after an argument. However, in the tips of her nails, was the projectile in its delicate glory; the frown on her perfect face was sound, unmoving, so it was safe to say she wasn't quite on the mood for a game of catch following my piercing words.  

Squinting my eyes, I had to make sure that what I was looking at was an eyeball; real or not, you don't see that every day detached from a person. A few steps towards the livid strawberry blonde confirmed what I'd rather have been untrue. Indeed I was, which made one wonder: "Okay, uh, whatcha guys doin' over there?" 

Sasha must have not heard me, or decided it was better to ignore me because she sent a grin at her older sister and breathed out a, "Whew! Didn't think you'd do it that quick." 

Fiona, stained with that sickly metallic scent, sauntered over to my friend with an equally sickly smile – no doubt trying to cope with whatever she just pulled off, my bet having to deal with that eyeball. Her hand was out as if expecting something, the leers shared a clear translation of their unspoken language. A con woman Fiona was, one that was sure of her abilities, and one that was a force to be reckoned with. Somehow, it was paired with Eris' aura, one under the illusion that she was an omnipotent being incapable of finding her match. 

The reality of it all wouldn't hit her yet, not in time, so she chuckled once as if pretending the brunette was amusing before smacking the eyeball onto Fiona's palm. My gaze was lingering on her retreating form, and the lips that formed her intentions to find use of this eyeball, before falling on the pod next to her destination. Blinking once, two times, I came to the haste conclusion that the gaping hole where his left eye was supposed to be was what occupied their time while the rest of us were too busy paying attention to the five year olds. 

" _Eye_  don't think his right eye looks too good there." I cackled. Upon the lack of reaction from the four of them, only intakes of breath that told a story on how they would rather be dead than hear that joke again, I slid over to them with an embarrassed, "Sorry." 

Now I was the five year old, whom had also brightened at the illuminated warning before my eyes:  _'EMPLOYEE NOT RECOGNIZED. ALERTING GENERAL POLLUX.'_ However, it was followed with no response or hysteria; perhaps the general fell with the company. Sasha, Vaughn, and I crowded around the tallest woman of the group, repulsion along her complexion, as she raised the eyeball to the scanner in front of us. Us twiddling our thumbs, searching for ways to wind time to pass faster, would have to wait. Luckily, for the impatient ones, we didn't have to. 

The four of us were diving ourselves into the dead man's – or blind, although I doubt any medic in Pandora could fix what damage Fiona just inflicted on him – business as if we were skimming through his emails. Imagine our pleasure when the sunset orange screen reacted to her efforts, a monotonous voice following with a, "Message one. Athena. Gortys Facility. Old Haven."

A woman, surely with a distinctive voice like that, was cloaked in shadow as if whoever she was speaking to didn't already know his cause of demise. The camera caught a red glint in her eyes, one of revenge and one that emitted a reaction from Vaughn, who audibly gulped at her first impression. She spoke with a sinister and foreboding tone, "Hello, Pollux. Too bad I missed you in Old Haven. As you've no doubt surmised, the Gortys project has been terminated, and now that you have no soldiers under your command, I regret to inform you—" I doubt she did, but there was no stopping her words. "that you have been relieved of your duties. I'll come by soon to  _ease_  your transition into retirement." 

With one click, she was no more. This was perfect timing for Vaughn to cut in with a, "Hey, uh, what's Old Haven?" 

"An Atlas mining town. It's been abandoned for years," Sasha answered, clicking her tongue, "Not for long." 

Fiona beamed at her kid sister, arm crossed over the other. "Also known as the perfect place to hide a Gortys project..." She paused to turn back towards the screen. "Whatever that is." 

Just in time, too, considering the voice from the monitor chose to introduce us to its owner. What was once a beautiful sunset orange transitioned into a melancholic, and old beige as if the message had been a relic from so long ago. I imagined he didn't count on having a spork lodged in his eyeballs in the afterlife, but I digress. Besides, it was his turn to speak. "If you're watching this, I'm already in suspended animation. You must understand. Athena was trying to kill me, and what I possess is far too powerful to end up in the arsenal of a ruthless mercenary. If Athena is no longer a threat, please activate the revival protocol in my stasis dock." Well... shit. "My life, and quite possibly, the fate of the universe is in your hands." With one last grin, he existed for no longer, so  _jokes on you dude, you're already dead._

For quite a few, the gang was silent, and it was then that I noticed the kitchen utensil in Fiona's hand. Our eyes were wide with the realization of what we had just done – Fiona, really, because I took no part in that – and our lips were parted in shock. Vaughn was the first to speak after that, a sentence that was a mix of groaning and words that were unable to be finished. He sounded like an idiot in my opinion, but all Hyperion people were just born stupid. 

Sasha shook her head. "No. No way! He had to be dead when you..." 

"Just... don't." Her sister shuddered, and mimicked Sasha's reactions as if she could forget it all. "So... guess we're going to Old Haven."

"Hey, idiot!" I called, hands to my hips as I insulted the Hyperion further, "If you're done talking to your imaginary friend, come down here and—"

Vaughn, ever the bro, cut in with a, "You gotta come look at this!"

Rhys must have already gotten the memo, because he keeled over as if he had been punched in the stomach, his feet aimlessly edging towards the railing behind him. If there was any chance of him falling over, no one made any attempts to change that; five of us, including Vaughn, were in no position or build to catch him if he did. In addition, four out of that five thought this journey would progress a lot more smoothly if an accident decided to take a Hyperion's life earlier than scheduled. 

Fiona certainly thought so. "Quit screwing around, Rhys!" 

"S-Sure thing," the company man sputtered out before cursing his height as he fell over that same railing... and died before his story even began. His insides pooling from a cut deep in his side, his blood seeped into our pores and dirtied us with that distinct scent. We stood, stupefied, wondering what could have been. That could have been one of us up those flights of stairs. It could have been one of us that was leaping off the ground, a squeak escaping our lips, or playing footsies without the watchful eye of the rest of the group. Perhaps three of us would bless our height, since it was impossible to have gone overboard when we just barely made the cut for that new rollercoaster at the amusement park... 

But our chance to shine would not surface quite yet, and it was none of us who climbed up those stairs to search for answers. Also, Rhys wasn't even dead, unfortunately. Yet the fact that he was able to hoist himself up from his palms was fortunate enough for his best friend, who couldn't believe his luck. It wasn't the first close call he witnessed, and surely would not be the last. However, the money man would celebrate his victory and comfort his friend... whom even then has no idea how he survived so far.

"So... much... pain," Rhys whined, which was nothing new to any of us, "Why am I still... conscious? I don't understand." His voice lowered to a wheeze, entirely different from why I was wheezing: how was this guy not dead yet?  _How_? 

Dropping to my knees, dust bunnies began to crawl up the freckles along my legs. My brows furrowed at the sight of him shuffling his gaze, unable to find the source of his apparent insanity. His left arm rested over his vision, breathing sharply as if he hadn't done so in a long time. It seemed that he was confused as the rest of us were about his behavior, further nerving us by shaking his head, over and over. Finally, to end his bout of derangement, his eyes aligned with mine. 

"Hey," I uttered, "the hell's up with you? If you hadn't noticed, you're acting weird." Something about Rhys bothered Eris, that much I knew.

Rhys shook his head again, his gaze falling to the black tiles beneath him. "I think I'm... I think I'm losing it. 

Perhaps I cared more than I thought. Maybe I had developed a heart for this group – tiny, but perhaps it existed enough for someone to see it through a microscope – but I looked at the man as he fought that internal battle and wanted to know more. This was in no way implying that I cared about Hyperion or Pandorans... but we had a mutual goal that could not be argued. The six of us were in search of a vault, a way out, and no Vault Hunter ever found one alone. We also were far from their caliber, so I supposed tagging along would be my only choice.

That meant pretending to care about Rhys' woes. "I mean... yeah, we know. You've been talking to yourself for the last thirty freakin' minutes." My palm on my knees, I jumped to my feet, wiping my hands of him. "Here ya' go, Hyperion. All yours."

Like the good Samaritans we were, we stood by the sidelines as Vaughn assisted Rhys to his six feet stature, a loud rumble above our heads. The tallest one of us craned his neck up at the morning sky, hands wounded in a fist to rub the hallucinations from his vision. "I must be pretty out of it... I'm seeing—" 

"Moonshots!" Eris cried from her corner, our eyes following the daunting fire coming our way. Each of us froze in our spots, crumbling slowly with each rumble that whirred in our ears. All we could do was repeat after Eris, confirming after the tenth time that we were indeed the target of the Hyperion weaponry before us. My feet took fast steps towards my left, then my right, with Sasha eventually mimicking my frantic actions. 

With my dirty blonde hair clenched in my fists, I stated, "Holy fuck, we're gonna die." 

"No! No, we're not!" Vaughn panicked. "We need to get out of here!" 

Our saving grace came in the form of the Loader Bot that I completely forgot existed for the last ten minutes. It stomped to the edge of the chasm, its scarlet eye beaming down at his beloved owner. The world was collapsing with each shot directed at us, so we stood by each other as if we wouldn't face death again. However, the Loader put its faith in us, in our game of hide and seek, and allowed another chance to possibly get ourselves killed yet again.

"H-Hey! Loader Bot! Loader Bot! Over here!" Rhys waved his long arms as if his pet wasn't already staring directly at him. 

Leaping off the jagged edges, it met with the floor with a huge thump, our feet vibrating of the frequency of the Loader's fall. My hands out as if regaining balance, my lips formed a grin at our savior. For someone who wanted to die so much, I surely didn't mind having a way out of this situation; we had outlived our time here, and any way that I could survive for longer was one I was going to take. The Loader Bot, however, found each of us and somehow voiced its disappointment with a flat, "Three trips? Really?" 

Rhys was sheepish, his hand at the back of his head. "Yeah... Sorry, Loader Bot." 

I couldn't help it. "You're... awesome, Loader Bot." 

So... cool... "Thanks. You are also awesome." 

I was a loser, but I treated that Loader Bot's opinion as if it was law, choosing to ignore the roll of Eris' eyes next to me. Rhys and Vaughn were the first to be launched over, obvious considering their relationship was beyond our comprehension, with Loader Bot's arms wrapped around them. Us girls wiggled our fingers, awaiting our turn, our eyes glinting with the chaos above. Then, Sasha and Fiona followed, surprisingly still waiting for us at the arena. 

They could have ran. The four of them could have escaped while there was more time, so they would leave Eris and I in our everlasting sorrows. Yet, despite everything, there was no signs they were planning on moving with us still down here. Eris would never let her guard down around them, and I learned with her experience to become vulnerable around others, Hyperions and Pandorans no less. My resolve began to crumble, however, as I looked up at my partners. Friends? Never. Temporary comrades? That was more likely. 

Or they only needed us because we knew how to protect ourselves, and everything I spouted was just bullshit. 

Of course, that was definitely an option, but that didn't concern me when my best friend was beside me, surprisingly undeterred by these events. However, my existence didn't comfort her – rather, she huffed the second my shoulder brushed against her left. In fact, I felt as if I didn't exist when I looked for her company; she was suddenly so far I couldn't reach for her and assure myself that I was still alive, that the two of us were real. Every attempt made to compromise, to understand her, was met with defiance. 

All I wanted was to crawl under those stairs and await the end. However, Loader Bot fell before our dejected figures, arms wide as if preparing for its next trip. I didn't bother to reject the bot, and thankfully neither did Eris, lips at a thin line as I escaped yet another dangerous situation. Again. And it wouldn't ever end, no matter how many times I grew exhausted of what the planet had to offer.  

With a hurried jump, the hour passed inside the chasm was no longer of importance, as we regained our spots as the harbingers of destruction. Everything was as we rightfully left it, green bills scattered across the sand, lost and forgotten for a new opportunity. In our prime, those hundreds would have been intact, yet the moonshots left them charred and useless. However, we stood in their path between them and whatever they were after – me as the target, perhaps, but Rhys paled as if I had no right to say that. The fight was far from over. 

Judging by how fast we ran towards Fiona and Sasha's caravan, we weren't going down without a struggle.

 

* * *

 

With the kid sister behind the wheel, also the youngest of the six of us, we scurried out of the arena like mice. The Helios base, directly above Pandora's moon, Elpis, was our cat. It was almost like that television show  _Tom and Jerry,_  except our version of Tom happened to hold more power over us than we desired. However, this game of cat and mouse would continue so as long as we were alive; surely, if those devastating moonshots would keep on missing, we would stand a chance. We would continue to escape from their grasp, throwing a smirk over our shoulders at our consistent victory. 

"If you're with Hyperion," Sasha noted, her sharp turn to the right knocking us off our feet. "then  _why_  are they targeting us?" 

As if the asshole knew I was about prepared to mention our deal, my side grew numb with the vibration in my right pocket. As Rhys and Vaughn implied of their reasonings, I chimed in with a panicked, "Shit... Shit! Maybe it was me... or something!" I shoved my hand inside and fished out the silver device, beating it on my palms. "He couldn't have tracked me, could he?"

"Wait. Wait wait. Hyperion? Tracking  _you_?" Rhys wasn't happy so maybe he wasn't too keen on being interrupted. 

"It's nothing important!" I assured as I chucked the object in my hands out the caravan window. "See? Must be you!" Might as well have signed my will right then and there, with my sheer stupidity. 

Standing beside the drivers seat, the rocky roads in our view threatening to compromise our escape, I found similarities in Sasha, who also seemed at a loss of what to do. "Who cares? We got bigger problems, like the fact that used the last of our boost getting out of the arena!" 

Unfortunately for the rest of us, the woman was right; one look at the controls before us spoke volumes; the boost was our only way out of this mess, and someone who actually knew how to drive was to be our ticket free. As one could have guessed, that person was not to be me. However, the man to our left wrapped his fist around the railing behind us tighter, a frown upon his lips. There was no hesitation to his actions, as if his whole body knew of the situation he was in. The way he so carefully analyzed the buttons – almost as if it was a video game – said it all: the company man had a plan. 

"Give me the wheel." The incredulousness, a gift from Sasha to him, was appreciated. "I can dodge the moonshots!" 

"Ah, I get it!" I nodded. "You can pinpoint where they'll land, right?" 

That smirk of his, a signature quirk that you know he can never get rid of, was sent in my direction. Rhys, the man with a plan, had full intent to make it out alive with the five of us in tow... and Loader Bot. Sasha was hesitant, the leather wheel digging into her palms; it was most likely due to the fact that Sasha was taught not to trust Hyperions, but I still believe that her owning that caravan meant no one else could drive it but her. However, Eris ended that train of thought quite quickly by slamming her hands on the round table, and piping up with a, "Just let the damn Hyperion drive!" 

A snarl upon her lips, Sasha directed her anger towards my direction. "If you're the sensible one of you guys, you might wanna do something about your friends attitude!" 

"I'm—" With another bump the caravan sped through, my head slammed into the arched wall behind me. "Jesus, take the wheel..." 

With a shake of her head, the driver slid out of her seat and handed Rhys responsibility over our lives. Squeezing my eyes shut, my hand rubbed at the spot forming at the back of my head, the other grasping at the wood railing to my left as if my life depended on it. One of my eyes opened to find Fiona by the kitchen counter – didn't know people could live in caravans, but apparently that was the case – her body swaying with the harsh and tough desert sand. Vaughn, arguably the most pessimistic of us, held his knees close to his chest and relied on the armrest to keep himself up. 

"Okay! Here's what we're gonna do. Just keep us alive until that thing is full, then boost us out of here! Got it?"  

"Nah, we'll just  _wait_  until this charges," I sneered, "We know, Fiona! Staying alive is gonna be the hard part!" 

"It's fine, I got this!" Rhys waved it off, his attention still not on the road like it should have been. This mistake would have killed the lot of us because the caravan was right in the path of destruction, a moonshot the size of a boulder heading our way. Perhaps my being here distracted him, the sarcasm escaping me boosting his ego. I screamed out his name – Hyperion was his name, at least to me – and took ahold of the wheel, turning it all the way to the right. Falling to the floor, what was left of my nails dug into the drivers seat, since the number of turns was bound to throw me around this vehicle. The wheels drifted to the left, then to the right, and so on and forth as Rhys avoided close calls one missed drivers test at a time. "I know how to drive!" 

"We're going to die," Vaughn muttered, shivering in his spot. 

Likely, considering Rhys' next move was to fly through a stone smack dab in the middle of our way to freedom, our few moments in the air causing us to miss the ground. If not for all of us clutching at the nearest object, hands sore because of how tightly we were grasping at our lives, the minute we hit the ground and continued our getaway would be a painful one. My body began a faint pulse, one that I knew would last for days to come, muscles aching even if all I was doing was praying that someone else was behind the wheel. 

The heels of my boots stomping on the floor, I hoisted myself up with the support of Rhys' chair. What greeted me was... nothing but a nuisance, the view beyond the windshield in tiny holes of a coarse wing. The carnivorous intent from them managed to block the glass and our vision, Rhys blindly driving with the rest of the Pandoran bred animals soaring in the distance. With so many obstacles ahead of us, our escape appeared bleak; unless, a certain bounty hunter stepped in. 

"Noah!" I spared a glance at the Hyperion, allowing him to continue. "Help!" 

I supposed I could, hand reaching behind me to pull my blade out of its sheath. The floral design imprinted itself in my palm, its charm dangling without any interruptions. With the katana in my grasp, I pushed it towards the windshield and plunged it into the stomach of the beast in our vision. With a cry, it had bounced off the front of the caravan, its last breath inhaled with a face full of crystals. The creatures were picked off one by one, with Rhys ducking every so often as to avoid Sasha and Fiona's line of fire. 

"Incoming!" Fiona promptly cried, her keen observance noticing us as the moonshots next target; this time, it didn't look like it was intending on missing. Blowing off the wheels and the entire back of the caravan, Fiona was thrown over the banister at the blast, the rest of us – for the eighth time in the past ten minutes – thrown off our balance.  

Vaughn, with one look at the aftermath, had one thing to say: "Holy shit!"  

_Holy shit_ was right because a creature that was ten times the size of our caravan came barreling our way, along with its little friends that decided to conceal our escape route. I was no animal whisperer, but that Rakk Hive was... well, he wasn't happy. It's mouth – no idea what that ungodly portal to its stomach even was – was wide as if preparing for its next meal, and it was swift in following its prey. It was accompanied by its parasites, about hundreds of them ascending towards the heavens to make way for the big bad. Even Eris, in her confident ex bounty hunter glory, swallowed the tiniest of gulps at the sight of it all.

"A Rakk Hive! It's a Rakk Hive!" Fiona warned. 

Eris paled. "Of fucking course it is!"

"This is not awesome!" Vaughn whined, "I hate my life!" 

Puffing my cheeks out, I shook my head and awaited the day when Vaughn would finally stop complaining about his own choices. In my second of blissful ignorance, I was naive to the Rakk – the names of these creatures escaped me, since no one had time to ask before they were swiping at your skin – and its hushed creep through the broken glass. The talons poking holes into my shoulders was a pleasant surprise, my teeth bared in a low growl. My body jolted forward, elbows the only weapon to free myself. Its broken wings were wrapped around me, its jagged teeth relentlessly continuing its assault until the will to fight was deemed useless.

Rhys, more concerned for my safety than the long road ahead of us was fidgeting in his spot, his irises shuffling towards the horizon, then back at my struggling form. "Eris!" he called over his shoulder, "A little help here!"

"Yeah!" Fiona agreed, "Sasha, we'll cover the back! Eris, go help Rhys and Noah!"

Somehow, that would be the only command given by Fiona that Eris would oblige. With a haste grunt of acknowledgement, the oldest climbed up the stairs, her eyes narrowed at what dared to injure me. One of her hands behind her back, she waved her blade in the air as if it was a toy – a warning, that if this Rakk continued there would be hell to pay – the metal glistening in the sunlight filtering through the windshield. The woman could have been washing the dishes, a smile on her thin lips as she blew bubbles, and you would still be in awe because she somehow finished her chores in five minutes and still had time to fool around.

Eris, somehow, had the ability to leave you breathless. "I'm going to give you 'til the count of three. One..." As she counted up, she stalked closer towards her prey. "Three!" A charm similar to mine fell over Rhys' head as she jabbed the point of her blade into the Rakk's chest, dragging it down the middle. My skin felt cold with the loss of contact, a shiver leaving me as I felt the chill of blood oozing from my wound. 

Rhys groaned, wiping at the insides splattered across his cheek. "My face!"

"I'll never get tired of saving your ass." Eris grinned, completely shoving the company man's disgust out of the way.

"Me neither," I breathed.

As Rhys pushed harder at the acceleration, the moment between us fell apart through a sudden victory; his possibly horrific plan landed us far from the clutches of the Rakk Hive, a pillar striking it and slowing it down so we would have enough time to escape. Beaming at each other, we audibly cried words of relief, a bit too ahead of ourselves. A plan turned upside down, I fumed at Rhys' last minute ideas, still dealing with the wake of the sudden ordeal: a bullet from above that left us spinning.

"How many times am I gonna have to hit the  _fucking_  ground?" I growled, finding no point in repeating the same cycle. "Y'know what? I'm done standing."

"We gotta fix this caravan!"  _There was no fixing it, Vaughn, the moonshot knocked one of our two back wheels off._

Eris paused, if only for a second. "Yeah, sure, I'll just pull a toolbox out of my ass!"

"Ew. Gross."

I groaned, palm slapped over my forehead in exasperation. This was what the rest of my days looked like: stupidity, with sarcasm on the side, then more idiotic tendencies, then  _more_  sarcasm. It was to be an eternal cycle, one that wouldn't stop so as long as I was there to fuel it. The six of us couldn't act like normal people on Pandora for once, scared for our lives because the Rakk Hive stomped  around our tiny caravan and snarled at our stillness. No, instead we turned our heads in disgust, some of us even snorting, because one of us was funny at the worst of times.

"Oh my God, who cares!" I said quickly, "We got two annoying asshats in front of us and we need a plan! Hyperion!" They both looked my way, but the one sitting by the couch met the back of my head. "What's the status on the boost?"

"It's, uh, it's almost there!" he responded, his hand hovering over the big red button, "Wait. I got another idea!"

Eris blew out a suffering sigh. " _Another_  one? Like you didn't almost get us killed the last two?" 

Rhys stopped. "Do you guys trust me?"

He received a simultaneous "No," so there went the rest of his ego. However, he was adamant about it this time, his hand never leaving the vicinity of the boost. With his eyes on the road, his ECHO eye gleamed into a baby blue, a frown upon his lips in pure determination and focus. Strawberry blonde hair whipped in my direction, the reason being to inquire of what stupid plan Rhys came up with now. I could only reply with a grin; whatever it was, it was bound to be something else.

Then he said, "Hold onto your butts!" and I no longer thought his plan was that credible.

Yet I anticipated the moment his palm would push at that button, goading the man into no hesitation. Inches away from the illuminating aura before him, I could not wait. With just a simple word, _"Go!",_ I was pushed against the railing, the swift breeze wrinkling my outfit. A cry was what escaped Rhys, his body forced closer into the headrest of the drivers seat. We all held on to whatever was closest to us, half of us closing our eyes because whatever was next was bound to be bad.

Me? I giggled, feeling as if I was invincible. This was what made life fun, those moments where your adrenaline shot through the roof. Those moments where you wouldn't mind dying because you had so much fun, times you wouldn't regret. This alone willed me from the floor, arm wrapped around the top half of the seat as we sped as fast as light towards our adversaries. The six of us were ready to fight a battle that us individuals would have lost, charging through it all like bulls towards an enemy.

"Rhys!" 

"Hang on!"

Our eyes were squeezed shut, the caravan brushing against the Rakk Hive's stomach as it took the blow of the next moonshot. The blast tore a hole into the creature, its bones protruding from what was left of its skin as we escaped underneath Helios' watchful eye through the Rakk Hive's sacrifice. You know, a great song to describe this intro chock full of entertainment is Shawn Lee's Ping Pong Orchestra's  _Kiss The Sky,_ but you couldn't exactly plug in your headphones when you were facing life or death.

As the miles between us and the Rakk Hive's corpse grew, Fiona, Sasha, and Vaughn had began their struggle in keeping up with the caravans speed. The gaping hole in the back of the vehicle enticed us into giving in, the wind crawling inside and initiating an assault on our skin. The hot air tugged on our digits, picking them off with one finger at a time. Our eyes watered at the biting breeze; it was as if needles were piercing our faces, but we could do nothing about it. We moved without any knowledge of where we were, speeding through in hopes of making it to Hollow Point as per Fiona's suggestion.

Yet I spared one glance over my shoulder, and witnessed the harsh sands ripping off our last back tire. Before I could comment that we had lost  _two_  of our tires in a  _three_  wheeler caravan, no one was behind the wheel any longer. The Hyperion worker – slave – was unable to withstand it, losing grip on the steering wheel and flying over the drivers seat. Before the black hole behind us could suck him out of the fast moving car, my fingers dug into his wiring with the hopes that my nails would grow back in a short amount of time. His whole body was suspended, no longer safely on the ground, and I was pulled so close into the railing I had to wrap my legs around the columns.

Fiona's feet dragged along the wooden floor, her hands reaching out to grasp at a bar on the left wall. With a grunt, she caught it, her body arched to push herself forward with all of her might. She was so, so close to the edge, and— "Don't let go!"

Squinting my eyes at the man, I hollered, "No promises! I'm trying!"

"W-Well, try harder!"

Maintaining my grip on his right, robotic arm, both of my palms closed around his elbows with one tug closer to me. My arms ached in the effort to save him from possible death, and I snuck a sharp intake of breath to deal with the pain in both my arm and shoulder. The wounds burned with the air seeping in, but I wouldn't stop, I wouldn't give in until it all ended. Luckily for me, the fight seemed to roll around in my favor, our arms tightly wound together with little chance of us unraveling.

Except Eris was the next one to lose her footing, and I froze as I watched her fall behind. My whole body went still, the hold on Rhys slowly falling because my hands desired hers instead. The second her last two fingers were ripped off the silver pole nearest to her, I grew selfish. I broke my promise to Rhys, I stopped attempting to save him and worried for my best friend instead. With an exclaim of my name, Rhys was forced to rely on the only person that could take ahold of him before the sheer force of the boost overcame him completely. However, he wasn't of significance to me; Eris and I would be apart if I couldn't do anything about it.

Climbing over the banister, I jumped to save her from the ground, holding my arms out to be one with her. With every ounce of energy I had left in me, I strained to at least brush my fingertips with hers, catching sight of the fear flickering in the light of her eyes. Alas, I had let go too late, and she broke from my grasp as quickly as I grabbed her. A shriek left my lips, her name bitter on my tongue, as I gaped at her body hitting the sand. The caravan moved without her, haste with no hesitation, and I cried out her name over and over until all that escaped me was a cough.

She raised her head slightly at the distance put between us, ultimately falling once Rhys and Vaughn were knocked unconscious by the blow. The two men rolled towards her direction, coming to a stop just feet before her. With that, it was unknown if the three survived; they had to have survived being thrown out of the caravan, but there were always those what ifs. What if more Rakks were coming their way? What if, by accident, they hit their head and suffered a fatal injury? 

Sasha took ahold of the wheel, with Fiona nearing the couch once the boost began to wear off. The three figures in the distance grew small as the front wheel propelled us forward, the whirring of the engine muffling my sharp, abrupt gasps.

Although I wasn't sure if it was due to the exhausting ordeal, or the anticipation of when I would see her again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to all who are still reading, and/or began reading! Please leave reviews if possible! Thank you so much!


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